


Spirits In My Head

by shinee5



Series: Sense8 AU [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic, Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Sense8 (TV) Fusion, Bipolar Disorder, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, M/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, Transphobia, all other aftg characters will make an appearance, follows the overall plotlines from sense8 loosely, kayleigh is not kevin's biological mother but his cluster mother, ot3 kevin/jeremy/jean, the characters listed are in the cluster, the moriyamas are bpo, trans!allison
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-07-13 02:37:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16008515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinee5/pseuds/shinee5
Summary: Eight individuals around the world find themselves suddenly connected to each other:A boy in Berlin, on the run with his mother.A student in Oakland, struggling with sudden hallucinations.A doctor in Columbia who becomes wrongfully hospitalized.A fighter in Seoul who faces an old enemy.A dancer in São Paulo that gets caught up in a drug war.A soccer star in Mexico City, trying to hide his identity.A police officer in Cape Town who investigates the death of a woman.A hacker in London who finds out someone is hunting them all down.Who can they trust? And most importantly, can they fight against the mysterious organization that is coming for them?[A Sense8 AFTG AU]





	1. Limbic Resonance

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter Summary: In which Kayleigh gives birth to a new cluster.
> 
> Warnings: Suicide (not graphic), Mentions of Drugs, Minor Character Deaths, Violence
> 
> Author’s Note: This is my first fic for this fandom and it is based on the Netflix series “Sense8”, following the overall plotline of the show loosely. I changed and adapted the background stories and individual plotlines quite a bit so it would fit the Foxes (more on that in the end notes). You can read this without having watched the show but I highly recommend it since a) this fic might be a bit confusing in the beginning otherwise and b) since this is one of my favourite shows ever. If there are any warnings you would like me to add please don’t hesitate to let me know. Also, I am not at all an expert on the different locations and countries, as well as on other experiences depicted in this fic, so even though I tried my best to research as much as I can, please let me know if I make a mistake and I’ll correct it.  
> Thank you so much to Niki [@neverlost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neverlost/) for beta-reading!! You’re the best!
> 
> Updates will hopefully be at least monthly. At this point, I have three chapters already written and the rest is planned in detail. I can't guarantee regular updates, though, because real life can be stressful ...
> 
> Disclaimer: Some Dialogue taken from the “Sense8” script by the Wachowskis and J. Michael Straczynski and from _All for the Game_ by Nora Sakavic.
> 
> -Hope you enjoy!

There was a storm coming. The woman felt it in her bones, could smell the saltwater in the air even in this abandoned warehouse, even through the numbness of the drugs that was slowly fading. Soon, all the tension would erupt, and rain would bless the earth after this long period of drought.

She was running out of time.

“David,” she gasped, reaching out to someone who wasn’t there, wasn’t there, was –

“I’m here,” he said, and God, she had missed his voice, missed his presence beside her while she had been taking the blockers –

“It hurts,” she managed to get out, “it hurts so much.”

“I know,” he said, and let her crush his hand in her pain, “but this was the plan, remember?”

And how could she forget. Only four of them were left, and it was only a matter of time until all of them would be gone. Giving birth was their only option, but still – “I don’t want anyone to die because of me,” she crumbled under a new wave of pain.

“They’ll be hunted both unborn or born,” he whispered, “But you can give them a fighting chance.”

She nodded, took all what was left of her and reached out once more –

And there they were.  
She could see them clear as day, as if they were just a step away instead of on the other side of the world: 

The boy in Columbia, preparing for his next surgery, looking up from his papers to meet her gaze with a confused frown –  
The girl in Seoul, going through her morning prayer and turning to look at her with eyes full of wonder –  
The boy only a few blocks away in the outskirts of Cape Town, having only just now fallen asleep after a long shift, startled from his dreams by her appearance ¬–  
The girl in London, in the middle of her one-night stand, catching only a glimpse of her in the mirror across the shoulders of the boy she was fucking –  
The boy in Mexico City, practicing his aim on the goal, stumbling when he saw her watching him in the stands –  
The girl in São Paulo, studying in the library, tired from last night’s performance, rubbing her eyes as they fell on her –  
The boy in Oakland, barely paying attention to his lecture, staring her down unnervingly the moment he realized she didn’t belong there –  
The boy in Berlin, throwing her a nervous glance over his shoulder as he followed his mother through a narrow alleyway –

Lightning struck, splitting the sky outside down the middle. “He’s here,” she breathed, all strength gone, and no more drugs left to take.

Tetsuji Moriyama had finally caught up to her.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding from me,” he said, his triumphant grin razor-sharp.

The mob behind him stood still, waiting for his signal to take her away, to strip all her secrets off her and make her reveal the faces she had just seen, and she would not allow them, she would not –

“Silly, silly girl,” Tetsuji laughed. He was leaning over her crumpled figure, and at the same time he was still standing in the doorway, the rain pouring down behind him. “Why did you stop taking those drugs? Did you really think I wouldn’t find you?”

She shook her head, and he seemed to notice something about her. “But no, that’s not why, is it? You gave birth to another cluster, didn’t you?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. “This won’t help you, Kayleigh. I’ll track them down like I did with you, and I’ll find them all, even fucking Wymack, no matter how smart he thinks he is.”

She only whimpered in response, felt David’s hand tightening around hers.

“Oh, he’s here now too, isn’t he,” Tetsuji drawled. “Well, tell him I’m looking forward to meeting him.”

“Go,” she whispered to David desperately, reaching for the gun near her empty box of blockers. “I don’t want you to see this, please just go – ”

He nodded, his face twisted in painful understanding.

“Just promise me you will protect them,” she added.

“I promise,” he said, and then she was alone.

She lifted the gun with shaking hands until it was resting against her mouth. There was nothing else left to do.

Tetsuji grinned mockingly. “Oh, come on, how many times have you made that threat? I think we both know you won't do it.”

“Don’t be so sure of that,” she said, her voice much stronger than it had been before. “And don’t ever fucking touch my children.”

Thunder rolled. The storm was only just beginning.  
No one heard the trigger going off. 

*

Allison Reynolds had a headache, and she was pretty sure it had something to do with this dude that was still somehow in her apartment although it was already past noon.

Sure, they had only woken up around ten, and she had graciously allowed him to use the shower, but now he was just lazing around in her kitchen and helping himself to her food, and at this point he was really overexerting her hospitality.

“Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” she asked, not caring enough to keep her annoyance out of her voice.

“Oh, come on, beautiful,” Seth said, taking a bite of a scone and chewing very loudly. “I thought we could enjoy each other’s company a bit longer.”

“You do understand the meaning of the word ‘one-night stand’, right?” Allison asked and rubbed her temple. She needed an ibuprofen, but before that, she should probably at least eat something.

She briefly considered kicking Seth out so that she could have breakfast in peace, but then decided against it. Maybe having some company wouldn’t be so bad after all.

“You okay?” Seth asked from where he was sitting on the kitchen counter, still chewing obnoxiously loud.

“Can you at least be quiet if you’re going to stay?”

“What, I thought you liked how loud I was,” he smirked, and she rolled her eyes.

“Last night, maybe … but my head really hurts right now,” she admitted, wrapping her robe around herself and grabbing a mug from one of the cupboards to make some tea.

Seth just let out a noncommittal hum in response. 

“Did you sleep well, at least?” he asked eventually when she was seated at the kitchen table, digging into her bowl of oatmeal and fruits.

She frowned. “Actually, I had the weirdest dream … no, wait, I was still awake when this happened – I saw this older woman looking at me from across the room, who I had never once seen in my life before. I could feel something was wrong with her, but I knew I couldn’t do anything because she was in a totally different place, far away from me … it’s all really a blur now, but it was the strangest thing.”

She didn’t know what made her tell him all of this, but he seemed intrigued rather than unbelieving.

“That is so interesting! You know these stories of people who feel that there is something bad going on with a family member, for example? And then the other person is actually sick or something happened to them? That’s limbic resonance! It’s a language older than our species,” he leaned forward excitedly.

She raised an eyebrow at him. “You believe in that kind of stuff?” 

“Sure,” he shrugged. “There’s probably more shit going on in this world than we will ever know of.”

“Fair enough.” She took another sip of her tea.

“But of course, you can enhance your experience of the world; see more than just what is most obvious to the eye,” he continued, reaching for something in his pockets. “You know, when people take drugs, they see their birth, their death, worlds beyond this one.” 

He finally found what he was looking for and pulled out a bag of blue pills.

“Maybe you should try it, see if you can find this woman again,” he said, waving the bag in front of her suggestively.

“Nah, I don’t do drugs.” She popped the last blueberry from the bowl into her mouth, stood up and shoved Seth off the counter.

“And now get the fuck out of my apartment already.” 

 

*

On the other side of the world, Aaron Minyard was staring at his reflection.

Something was wrong with it.

Sure, it seemed to wear sweats and a t-shirt as well, and its blond hair was sticking up everywhere like it always did in the mornings, but first of all, Aaron had never possessed a pair of black sweatpants. He preferred gray ones, thank you very much. And second of all, why did he seem to have covered his arms with black bands?

Confused, Aaron looked down at his own arms, which were very much band-free.

He looked back up at the mirror and was wearing his gray sweats again.

He blinked a few times, but his reflection seemed to be permanently back to normal.

He rubbed his eyes tiredly, already feeling a headache building up. Maybe he needed to get more sleep if he was starting to see things that weren’t there.

“Everything alright?”

He turned around to face his fiancée, who was leaning against the bathroom’s door frame.

She smiled at him, then yawned and ran a hand through her tangled hair.

“Just tired, same as you,” he mumbled.

“Yeah, these long shifts are killing me,” Katelyn said, sliding behind him and wrapping her arms around his waist. “I’m so looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow.”

He relaxed into her embrace. “I hope I won’t wake you up, though … it sucks that we don’t get the same days off this week.”

She pressed a kiss to the back of his neck. “It’s alright. If I wake up, I at least get to see your beautiful face before you leave.”

“God, I love you.” He turned around to kiss her.

She laughed and let him wrap his arms around her shoulders. “Love you too – but also, we’re already late, no time for make-out sessions.”

“Shit,” Aaron said, glancing up at the clock.

“Shower together?” he offered after a moment of consideration.

Katelyn nodded, and he followed her to the tub, ignoring the way his reflection seemed to stare at him when he looked back at the mirror.

He had a long day of assisting surgeries to look forward to, so he should better concentrate on that instead of whatever his sleep-deprived mind was making up.

*

The smell of hospital disinfectant woke Andrew Doe up. 

He groaned, stretching his body and squinting at the radio on the nightstand. He couldn’t make out much, though, so he reached for his glasses and tried again.

Fuck. It was seven in the morning. He had gotten exactly three hours of sleep after coming home from his night shift at Eden’s. 

Of course, now that he was awake, he knew better than to try to fall asleep again. At best, he would just lay there for hours without being able to drift away. At worst, he’d have nightmares that would follow him through the rest of the day.

He rolled over, and stayed like that for a while, before finally standing up and making his way to the shower. There, he tried to scrub away that acrid smell that was still stuck in his nose. 

Finally, the smell and all the memories his brain had dug up in association to it faded, and he allowed himself to breathe in deeply.

He slowly and methodically went through the motions of getting ready – putting on clothes and his contacts, shaving his face, brushing his teeth, combing through his hair, and applying some deodorant. 

Then, he moved on to the kitchenette, nibbled at some stale cookies for breakfast, and washed down his pills with a glass of tap water. 

He looked at the radio again. It was still only eight. 

It was going to be a long day. He put on his armbands, the weight of the knives in their sheaths settling him, took his uni backpack and left his shitty dorm room behind.

Walking across campus towards the library, he couldn’t seem to shake off a kind of uneasiness that was creeping up his back. It felt like someone was following him, and he didn’t like it one bit.

Just before he reached the main entrance, he saw something move in the corner of his eye. Steeling himself for a fight, he swiveled around only to find nothing but empty space in front of him.

He frowned. Something like this had happened yesterday, as well. That woman that had appeared in the middle of his 4pm lecture had certainly not been real.

Fuck. He really needed to talk to Bee.

 

*

Abram wondered, not for the first time, whether he was growing to be even more paranoid than his mother.

Surely, she must have noticed the blond boy who had been following them since they had exited the U-Bahn station at Neukölln.

“Mom, wait –,“ he called out and moved to catch up with her, his duffel bag swinging behind him. 

“It’s Mama now,” she chided him in a sharp tone once he was close enough that nobody would overhear. “And you should really hurry up, I don’t like these streets.”

“Me neither,” Abram agreed, stuffing his hands in his pockets and adjusting his walking speed to that of his mother. “I think we’re being followed.”

“What?” Mary glanced to the sides, trying to gauge the situation without being too obvious. “I haven’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure,” he said, but frowned when he tried to recall what exactly he had seen. Just because he had spotted that blond guy a few times didn’t mean that he was one of his father’s men. Maybe he just was headed in the same direction. Besides, Abram hadn’t seen the guy for a few blocks now – it was like he had vanished into thin air.

“Maybe you’re right. I’m just exhausted,” he conceded, and his mother threw him an assessing look. 

“Let’s be more cautious regardless,” she said after a moment and led them both through a more adventurous route than planned.

Finally, they rounded another corner, and Mary pulled her son through a small doorway into a dingy backyard. There were several doors which Abram assumed led to different apartments, but they seemed pretty empty, the glass in the windows mostly shattered and graffiti everywhere.

It wasn’t the worst place he’d seen.

Mary pried open one of the doors and they entered their new place. Abram knew his mother was already making plans to get a better, sturdier lock the next day, but for now they would have to take turns sleeping and keeping watch to make sure no one would discover them.

They spread their only blanket on the cold concrete of the floor and set their bags down to use them as pillows. Mary took a bit longer to go through her stuff, and finally retrieved one of their new passports that she had been safe-keeping for both of them.

“Keep this with you at all times,” she reminded him, handing him the thin red booklet. Abram nodded, remembering the dozen times she had already told him this in the past. He didn’t think he would ever forget.

Mary took the first watch, insisting he should sleep off his exhaustion, even though it was only late afternoon. He curled up on his side, resting his head on his duffel bag, and rifled through his passport until he found his new name.

“Stefan Koch,” he mouthed silently, trying to get a feel for the pronunciation. 

A new identity, a new place and language, once again.

He wondered how long it would last this time around.

 

*

Kevin Day was not having a good day. 

He’d felt a bone-deep exhaustion, similar to jet-lag, since he’d woken up, even though he had not been in an airplane for some time.

Over the course of the day, he had then developed a massive headache that even his usual hangover cures couldn’t get rid of. 

And now, he was just immensely frustrated with himself. He was a perfectionist through and through, and that he had missed several passes by his team members in the last few minutes had escaped neither him nor his coach.

“Let’s take five minutes,” Herrera called, and then came over to Kevin when he was chugging down his water. “Get it together, Day. Even if you’re a soccer superstar on the national team, I won’t hesitate to bench you if you don’t focus on the Eagles as well.”

He was gone before Kevin could snap at him, which was probably good. He still felt like he wanted to break something. How dare Herrera assume that he wasn’t going to give his all for his team! All that was important to him was the perfect game, no matter if it was in the league or the national team, and his coach should know that.

On the other hand, he really wasn’t playing his best today. 

Kevin sighed and rubbed his temple, hoping that hydrating would help his headache at last.

An arm thrown around his shoulder startled him out of his thoughts. Jeremy was smiling at him, although he could make out a certain tenseness around his eyes. 

“You alright?” he asked quietly. Jean had come up to them as well, hovering awkwardly next to them with a concerned expression. 

It was understandable, Kevin thought. After all, they had been the ones who discovered his grogginess in the morning and had tried to convince him to call in sick.

“Still that headache,” he mumbled. “Maybe I should really sit out for the day, I don’t want to compromise the game any longer than I already have …”

He could feel Jeremy squeezing his shoulder in support before he let go. “Try to get some rest. Call one of us if it gets worse,” Jeremy whispered, and Jean nodded his agreement. 

After a small argument with the coach, who was still pissed off at his performance, he was sent off the pitch with the advice to “fucking stay home next time if you know you can’t play properly” and climbed the stairs down to the showers defeatedly.

He let his thoughts wander while he was standing under the stream of water, and they kept coming back to that weird woman he had seen in the stands yesterday. It hadn’t been an open practice, but no one else had remarked anything about her. 

He was still wondering about that particular mystery when he stepped into the locker room and stopped right in his tracks.

There was an Asian woman sitting on one of the benches, her head bent in what seemed like a prayer.

He was definitely going insane.

*

Renee Hwang had just been getting ready for her early morning prayer, when she looked up to find a half-naked man in her bedroom.

She politely averted her eyes, while he just gaped at her in shock and nervously adjusted the towel around his waist. 

“This is the men’s locker room,” he finally spluttered. “Why are you in here?”

“I could ask the same of you,” she said calmly, although she had to admit she was surprised at herself for not being more shocked at what was happening. 

“This is my bedroom,” she said, and the half-naked man’s eyes went even wider. 

“Where am I?” he said, as if he had just now realized his surroundings. 

“As I said, you’re in my room,” Renee answered. “Which is in Seoul, to be precise,” she added since something in her gut told her that the man had no idea about this, as well.

“In Seoul?! What the – “ 

And as quickly as he had appeared, he was gone again.

That had certainly been strange, Renee thought. It was similar to the vision of the woman she had had the day before, around the same time. She, too, had been in distress, although Renee wasn’t sure what had been troubling her and if it had been the same as this man’s shock.

Perhaps God wanted her to see these people – he must have a plan for her in all of this, she thought, and entrusted herself in his hands. 

Once she had finished her morning prayer, she went about preparing herself some breakfast, fiddling with her cross necklace and thinking about her plans for today. 

She had to go to work in a couple of hours, and on her lunch break she would buy a nice little bouquet and stop by her foster mother’s. 

It had been a while, she thought and hummed to herself while doing the dishes. She was already looking forward to seeing her.

*

“How was your meeting with your mother?” Laila asked when Matt got in the car. 

“Good,” he mumbled through the last bite of his hamburger and nearly choked in his haste to swallow. “Just kind of forgot about the time,” he managed to get out and chased down his food with the rest of his coke.

“I can see that,” Laila said and raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re a whole mess, Boyd.”

“Thanks, Dermott. Love you too,” he laughed, and Laila snorted. 

“At least you’re actually on time for our shift.” And with that, she hit the accelerator.

While they made their way on their patrol through the city, Matt started telling her about his dream from last night to pass the time.

“It was like I was there,” he told her. “I could feel the wind coming in through the broken windows and smell the rainstorm outside and the dingy mattress she was sleeping on. It wasn’t like a normal dream, now that I’m thinking about it.”

“Maybe you were astro-projecting, like Dr. Strange,” Laila quipped as she made a turn into one of the warehouse districts, leaving the finer neighbourhoods of Cape Town behind.

Matt rolled his eyes at her. “Why are you so obsessed with Marvel movies, anyways,” he replied and then focused on looking out for potential problems again.

She ignored him, before piping up again. “Officer Strange! That’s your new name now,” she laughed, but Matt was suddenly distracted when a building they were just driving by caught his eye. He recognized that warehouse from somewhere – 

“Stop the car,” he demanded.

“Hm?”

“I said stop the car!”, Matt said and scrambled out as soon as Laila had slowed down enough.

“What the fuck?“ she replied, parking the car and following him towards the warehouse.

“This is where it happened,” he explained, drawing his gun and motioning for her to do the same.

“What happened?” Laila asked confused, reaching for her weapon anyways just in case.

“The woman – in my dream – and oh my god, I remember now, she had a gun, I think she hurt herself, I – “

He stopped right at the entrance of the warehouse, interrupting himself in his stammering. A mattress lay in the middle of the floor, a blanket crumpled above, but there was nobody there. The whole building was completely abandoned, and still Matt’s brain was suddenly flooded with images from last night. “This really wasn't a dream.”

“Of all the partners, I end up with a Mulder-wannabe,” Laila sighed.

“Laila, this is serious - a woman killed herself right here,” Matt insisted. He could now remember it much more clearly, as if he himself had been in her place.

“Well, then where's the blood, Matt? Maybe she only shot herself in the fifth dimension, so we can't see it,” Laila said a bit exasperated.

Matt stepped forward into the room and moved towards the mattress.

“Listen, I've never been here before, but I know about this,” he said, reaching for a small box that was hidden under the blankets with a certainty that surprised him. “She had some kind of drug stored in this.” 

He opened the box to reveal a small nondescript pill bottle. There was nothing but some kind of black residue left inside. 

“Well, that still doesn’t really prove anything,” Laila said. “To be honest, you’re starting to freak me out. I think I’m gonna go wait in the car until you can actually show me evidence of a crime, alright?”

Matt just nodded and watched her go. He knew that he sounded insane, but on the other hand he also knew with absolute surety that the woman from his dreams had really been here last night.

A noise from behind him made him turn around, his weapon raised.

There was a girl standing in the middle of the warehouse, dark-skinned, with short hair and clad in some kind of colourful costume. Matt hadn’t heard her come in.

“What is this place?” she asked, then seemed to recognize her surroundings. “Is this where she died?”

“How do you know that?” Matt asked, lowering his gun slowly and tucking it away again.  
“I saw her,” she answered. “Did you see it too?”

“Yeah,” he said. “It happened here. But I have no idea why I know this and what’s going on.”

“This is not in São Paulo, is it?” the girl asked, and started wandering around and inspecting the building. Somehow, if Matt concentrated on it, it felt like he was walking right beside her, while simultaneously still standing where he had been before. It was fascinating and unsettling at the same time.

“No, it’s in Cape Town,” he answered.

The girl turned towards him with a surprised gasp. “In South Africa? But I’ve never been to South Africa!”

She came closer again, until she was standing right in front of him.

“What’s your name?” she asked curiously.

“I’m Matt,” he said. “And who are you?”

“I’m Dan- Oh, God no, what are you doing?” she suddenly shouted, flinching away from someone that wasn’t there, “What-“ 

There was a loud crash and a scream, and then she was gone.

*

In a flash, Dan was ripped away from the cop in that abandoned warehouse and found herself back in the private room of the strip club.

The two men that she had been entertaining just minutes ago were facing each other with wild looks in their eyes and guns in their hands.

“Oh, God, no, what are you doing?” she shouted, trying to get their attention with her raised voice.

One of them looked at her briefly, just to shove her away with a brutal hand, and she flinched away from him, barely finding her footing in her stilettos. 

“What - “

Before she could finish her sentence, a shot went off, sending the other man crashing into the table stacked with liquor. Blood oozed through the fabric of his shirt, and glass shards had pierced themselves into his hands.

Dan screamed, clapping her hand in front of her mouth to muffle the sound.

The man who had fired the shot ignored her, grabbing a briefcase that the gunned down man had been carrying before, and turned his back to hurry out of the room.

In that moment, the bleeding man, who was clutching his wound with one hand, reached for his gun with the other. Before the other had even reached the door, he fired several times into his back, until they both fell to the floor, unconscious.

Dan sank down to her knees, shaking all over and feeling like she was going to be sick.

Both of the men were dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Cluster consists of Kevin, Allison, Aaron, Andrew, Neil, Dan, Matt, Renee. They’re all the same age here and older than in canon, I’d say about 25 years old.  
> Pretty much all other aftg characters will eventually also make an appearance!  
> I basically took the Sense8 characters and the aftg characters and pushed their background stories and plotlines around until I got something that made sense lmao.
> 
> To give you a bit of a simplified overview:
> 
> Kevin is in Mexico City and like Lito.  
> Allison is parts Nomi but in London like Riley.  
> Aaron is in Columbia, South Carolina, and he's parts Nomi and parts Kala.  
> Andrew is in Oakland, California, and he's mostly like Wolfgang.  
> Neil is in Berlin, Germany and he's Wolfgang as well.  
> Dan is in São Paulo, Brazil, and she's like Riley.  
> Matt is in Cape Town, South Africa, and he's parts Will and parts Capheus.  
> Renee is in Seoul, South Korea, and parts Sun and parts Kala.
> 
> I think most changes will be apparent/explained in future chapters, so I don’t want to go into too much detail yet!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this first chapter – please let me know what you think in the comments! Or come find me on my old [tumblr](https://franzithebookworm.tumblr.com)!


	2. I Am Also a We

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which shit starts going down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, since the response to the first chapter was really good, it motivated me to write some more and I’m updating sooner than planned! Thank you for your lovely comments, everyone<3
> 
> Btw I’m actually from Germany but I’ve only been to Berlin once in my life and I’m from the South, so I can only hope Neil’s parts are accurate? But that’s why some of the Germany parts might be oddly specific in the future lmao - as I said, I did some research on the other countries, but apart from the US I haven’t experienced living there, so again if I make a mistake please let me know :)
> 
> Thanks again to Niki [@neverlost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neverlost/) for betareading!
> 
> Hope you enjoy!:)

Chapter Warnings: Panic Attacks, Forced Hospitalization, Mention of vomit, Proust makes an appearance, Car Crash

 

Danielle Wilds was struggling to breathe.

Static filled her ears.

The room went in and out of focus, blood and glass splattered everywhere.

She gasped desperately for air, until she finally managed to take a deep breath.

Slowly, she pushed herself up from the ground, nearly falling over again when her high heels tripped her up. She leaned against one of the walls, still panting hard, and took in the scene in front of her.

The two men were dead, their briefcases and guns scattered through the room, the furniture and liquor bottles destroyed.

Nobody in the adjacent club seemed to have heard the noise they had made – there was still loud music coming from the next room, although the sound was slightly muffled by the walls.

A rush of fear suddenly caught hold of her. She had to get away from here, had to leave, it wasn’t safe –

So, instead of calling her stage sisters for help, she slowly stumbled over to a back door and out into the warm, humid summer night.

She looked around to make sure no one had seen her, pulling off her high heels to regain her balance, then took off in a jog at first, before speeding up.

She didn’t stop running until she’d reached home.

*

Abram was tired of running. 

He wouldn’t ever let his mother know this, but it was true. 

It had been more than fifteen years now since Mary had taken her son and a huge sum of money from her husband and escaped from Baltimore. How they had managed to survive for so long, Abram couldn’t say. 

They had come close to being caught more times than he could count by now, and barely made it out of Australia unharmed a few days ago.

Nathan Wesninski still didn’t seem keen on putting an end to his hunt anytime soon. His desire for revenge after the betrayal of his wife and his fear of her ratting him out to the numerous government organizations that were after the Butcher of Baltimore was bigger than the amounts of money he spent on his chase.

At this point, Abram wasn’t sure anymore if this life on the run was really better than the alternatives.

For now, though, he was supposed to go out and look for an easy job that didn’t ask too many questions. 

Or at least, Stefan Koch was.

He slipped his new identity on like a raincoat, letting it cover up everything that was Abram until all that was left was Stefan. 

Stefan, who was a recent high school graduate and in need of a little money while trying to figure out what to do with his life. 

Due to his height, he could easily be perceived as younger, and the German should also be no problem, since he had spent some time in Cologne several years ago. 

Mary, who had already adopted the identity of one Anja Koch, had gone on an errand a couple of hours ago, and now they had real locks on the windows and the door.

Once they’d secured their apartment, Anja and Stefan went their separate ways, and agreed to meet up in five hours.

Stefan kept his duffel bag close to his body as he weaved through the busy crowds on Karl-Marx-Straße. 

His first stop was a newsstand, where he bought the local paper for a few cents and browsed through the job ads quickly. He decided on a few of them that he could apply for and stuffed the paper into his bag for later.

When he looked up again, the short blond guy he’d seen yesterday was staring right at him from just a couple feet away.

Stefan took a startled step backwards, cursing himself for not noticing him earlier.

He’d already calculated several escape routes and was half a second from turning around, when suddenly the boy spoke up in a flat voice.

“Why are you following me?”

Stefan laughed incredulously at that. Although he knew he should rather just leave as fast as possible, something about the other intrigued him enough to reply: “ _You_ are the one who’s been following me since yesterday.”

The blond guy kept his distance, tapping one of his black armbands with light fingers before crossing his arms.

“I don’t believe you,” he finally said.

“I don’t care,” Stefan replied. 

The other let out a small sigh, the only sign of emotion he had shown so far. 

“Why am I even talking to you, you’re not even real,” he murmured.

“I’m not a hallucination,” Stefan said, although he was starting to wonder himself why he was still talking to this guy. 

He looked around to scan his surroundings out of habit.

When he turned back, the boy was gone.

 

*

 

“Kevin Day,” the reporter said. “What a pleasure to meet you.”

Kevin shook her hand amicably, before settling in a chair across from her.

It was just another of several pre-season interviews he had to sit through. He put on his best press-friendly smile and started telling her all about what he expected Club América to achieve this year.

Then, towards the end, the reporter’s questions inevitably became more personal.

“So, Kevin, tell us a bit about your life outside of the pitch,” she said. “I hear there are rumors going around that you’ve been on a couple of dates with Thea Muldani?”

Kevin laughed, and hoped his nervousness wasn’t as obvious as he felt it to be.

“Thea? Oh no, no, Kathy, Thea and I are just good friends. I admire her work and I believe she is going to take women’s soccer to the next level in Mexico.”

“Just good friends?” the reporter asked skeptically. “Well, if you say so – it seems that rising soccer star Kevin Day is still on the market, ladies!”

“I certainly am,” he grinned and winked at the camera.

He was relieved when it was finally over.

Still, he kept his public-friendly façade on until he was punching in the code on his apartment door. Tiredly, he entered and let himself relax at last.

He still had a slight headache from yesterday, but he’d managed to power through the training session in the morning and the interview. Nonetheless, he was left wondering what had been going on the day before, the strange vision of the Asian woman still fresh in his mind.

Slowly, he took off his shoes and shuffled into the kitchen to fix himself a cup of coffee. While he was fiddling with the coffee maker, a pair of hands slipped around his waist, and he allowed himself to breathe and to lean back into the embrace.

“Hey,” Jeremy murmured. “How did it go?”

He and Jean had gone home right after the training session, and apparently cooked lunch together, judging by the amazing smell in the kitchen. 

“It was the usual,” Kevin sighed and took a sip of his coffee. 

Jeremy hummed and let go of him, just to take out the leftovers from the fridge and put them into the microwave for Kevin. 

Once the food was done, the two of them went into the living room in search for Jean, who was lounging on the couch, deeply engrossed in a book.

When he heard them approaching, he looked up at them before scooting over to make space on the couch and smiling nervously.  
He was still sometimes shy around them, still figuring out his place in their relationship. After all, it had been only a few months since they had officially asked Jean to be with them.

Jeremy, who was always the best at showing his affection out of all of them, took his place beside Jean and ruffled his hair, pressing a kiss to his temple and smiling back openly.

Kevin remained standing for a moment and suddenly was overwhelmed by the sound of police sirens and at least a dozen different voices talking to each other in English.

Confused, he checked the tv, but it wasn’t on.

The moment passed as quickly as it had begun, and Kevin pushed the memory of it away together with all the weird things that had happened in the last few days.

For now, he decided to focus on what was happening right in front of him and settled on the couch with his boyfriends.

 

*

 

The precinct was bustling as always when Laila came back from her lunch date with her girlfriend.

“Hey there, Officer Strange,” she greeted Matt and handed him a cup of coffee from the vending machine down the hall.

“Thanks, Dermott,” he replied, taking a sip from the cup and grimacing at the taste. “I will never get used to the shitty coffee here.”

“At least it’ll keep you awake so you won’t dream about mysterious people in warehouses anymore,” Laila said, settling down at her desk.

“So you still don’t believe me?”

Laila shrugged. “You haven’t shown me any proof that it was more than a fucked up dream yet.”

“Well, luckily, I managed to get a hold of the CCTV files from a factory across the street from the warehouse,” Matt told her and motioned for her to come over. “If anybody pulled a body out, we'll see it.”

He pulled up the recording from two nights ago and fast-forwarded through the footage. Then, as the time display reached one in the morning, something weird happened.

The video seemed to jump forward to around three o’clock, with no indication of what had happened in between.

“What the hell? Somebody erased two hours of this,” Matt said and pointed at the screen.

Laila frowned as she watched him replay the footage.

“Okay, I have to admit that’s weird,” she answered, and then suddenly stopped the video. “Hey, check out that guy. Maybe he saw something.”

And really, there was a pixelated figure in the background who seemed to have crossed the street at the time the recording picked up again.

They agreed that they needed to find this potential eyewitness as soon as possible but were interrupted when the captain ordered them to the briefing room.

Matt sighed and rubbed his eyes as he followed Laila into the room. He had barely slept after his encounter with the girl in the warehouse last night, her abrupt disappearance keeping him tossing and turning. 

On the one hand, it worried him that he was seeing things that couldn’t possibly be real but felt so much as if they were. 

If Dan was real, though, then something terrible must have happened to her wherever she came from – hadn’t she mentioned São Paulo? – judging by her expression and the scream she had let out before she had vanished.

Strangely enough, he found himself caring very much about this strange girl’s well-being, much more so than he was concerned with why he had seen her in the first place.

All in all, it had led to a very sleepless night.

Now, though, he settled next to Laila at one of the desks and eyed the captain curiously. He was speaking with an older man who was wearing an unfamiliar uniform.

When everyone had arrived, the captain introduced the man to them as Agent Browning from the FBI and let him step up to the microphone. 

“Thank you for welcoming me to your precinct,” Browning said. “I’m here on a very urgent matter concerning a threat of terrorism to the United States. Now, I’m sure you’re all confused about why that has anything to do with South Africa. Let me elaborate a bit – “

He pulled up a picture on the screen behind him. It showed a scruffy middle-aged man that stared right at the camera.

“This is David Wymack,” Browning explained. “He is wanted for several crimes and has managed to evade authorities for years.”

Matt gaped at the picture, then nudged Laila.

“I think I know that guy,” he told her under his breath.

“How?” She stared at him in surprise.

“I'm not sure.”

They were interrupted when Browning spoke up again.

“We have reasons to believe that he might have connections here in Cape Town, which is why I am here. If he comes here, we need to know, and we need to know now.”

 

* 

 

“I need to know when Dr Santiago is done with his surgery, I have some important details about tomorrow’s operation to discuss with him,” Aaron told one of his colleagues as they made their way through the hallways of the hospital.

“I think he should be finishing up by noon if everything goes as expected,” he answered.

Aaron nodded. It was half past eleven now, and he miraculously had a little time for a break. 

He shuffled towards one of the vending machines near the exit and got himself a few snacks, trying to ignore Katelyn’s voice in his head that was scolding him for not eating properly. 

She wasn’t even here today, since it was her day off, so really, she wouldn’t have to know. And besides, maybe she would cook something in the evening, so he could take that as an excuse to not eat the shitty cafeteria food.

He unwrapped a granola bar slowly and took a moment to relax after the first stressful part of his shift. The headache that had bothered him yesterday had resurfaced already.

Just as he was taking his first bite, someone tapped him on the shoulder and he turned around to a scruffy-looking middle-aged man that seemed vaguely familiar.

“Excuse me,” the man said, not looking into his eyes yet but instead focusing on his name tag. “Mr Minyard?”

“How can I help you?” Aaron managed to get out before finally their eyes met and he was overwhelmed by memories that were not his own.

 

*

 

When he came back to himself, he found himself lying in a hospital bed.

Confused, he tried to sit up, but his brain felt like it had split in half, pain and dizziness fogging up his mind, and he immediately sank back into the cushions.

He heard one of the nurses that had been monitoring him call a doctor, and soon an unfamiliar man entered the room.

“Ah, good to see you’re awake, Mr Minyard,” he greeted him and extended his hand towards him. “I’m Dr Proust, neurosurgeon specialist here at Easthaven.”

Aaron reached for it and shook his hand with difficulty, feeling on the verge of vomiting whenever he tried to move.

“How long have I been out?” he croaked, and only then registered what the other had just said. “Wait, why am I at Easthaven?” The other hospital was on the opposite end of the city from where he worked, after all.

“About three hours,” Proust answered. “And as I said, I’m a specialist in the field, so they let me take this case and transferred you here when they saw your scans.”

Aaron swallowed hard. “What scans? What is going on? Did you inform my fiancée?” 

There were too many questions swimming around in his head, rendering him even more confused, but he focused on Katelyn. She needed to know, needed to be here –

“I’m sorry, Mr Minyard, but we can only allow close family for visitation right now. If you were already married – well, anyway, do you have parents or siblings that you would like me to call instead?”

“My mother’s dead, my father is non-existent, and I don’t have any siblings,” Aaron said flatly. “Also, are you kidding me? I would say a fiancée is the closest family I could possibly have.”

He was growing increasingly annoyed at Proust. “I don’t know if this is the way you do things at Easthaven, but it’s certainly not the way things are done at my hospital,” he added and then groaned when another wave of pain hit him.

“For now, you’re going to have to follow my rules,” Proust said coldly. “Let me explain your situation first, and maybe then you will see that I’m doing this for your own well-being.”

He pulled up a sheet of brain scans and continued: “We found a very disturbing growth when we analyzed your scans. I took a closer look at them and came to the conclusion that it can’t be anything else but UFLS.”

He paused for a moment to let it sink in. 

Aaron just stared at him. “Is this supposed to tell me something? I’m no neurosurgical specialist, after all.”

“It’s not very common, so I suppose it’s no surprise that you haven’t heard of it despite your medical education,” Proust continued arrogantly. 

“It stands for undifferentiated frontal lobe syndrome. There is a procedure to treat it, but it requires a very aggressive surgery where we go in and try to cut away the growth. Without it, the tissue will continue to metastasize. Patients will begin to experience a deterioration of mental faculties. It's common for them to experience very intense, very real hallucinations and synesthesia that precedes a loss of memory and a complete occlusion of identity. I regret to say this, but you might be dead within months if we don’t operate immediately.”

There was silence while Aaron tried to process this. 

Two days ago, he had first had a hallucination, followed by a severe headache, and now Proust was saying this meant he was dying from a growth in his brain?

He couldn’t, wouldn’t believe this – and this procedure the neurosurgeon was talking about sounded more like a lobotomy than a normal brain surgery.

“Let me think about it before I make a decision,” he said when Proust stared at him expectantly. “And let me talk to Katelyn.”

“I’m afraid you won’t have much time to decide”, he answered, and then: “Surely you now understand why your fiancée can’t be here, since you are very unstable and there is a risk that you could hurt her.”

With that, he was out of the room before Aaron could protest. 

Fuck.

Who even was this guy?

There was something really wrong about him and Aaron was somehow very sure he could not trust him.

And then, a couple seconds later, it finally registered in his exhausted brain that Proust had locked the room from the outside when he had left.

Taking all his strength, Aaron scrambled out of the bed, pulling his IV drip out in the process and stumbling towards the door, trying his hardest not to vomit when the fast movement made him dizzy again. 

He threw himself at the door with all his might, pounded on it and cried for someone to let him out, but no one seemed to hear him.

Finally, he gave up and turned around, sliding down until he sat on the ground with shaking hands and his pulsating head.

“You have to get out of here,” a voice suddenly sounded sharp in his ear.  
Aaron jerked, looking up to where the voice had seemed to come from, and was met by the sight of the man that he’d seen right before he’d fallen unconscious.

He remembered looking into his eyes, and immediately seeing a thousand images at once: the man with the woman he had seen two days ago, a younger version of the man meeting her for the first time, the woman together with an older Asian guy wearing a suit, and more. 

They felt like memories, but he had never seen these people before in his life.

“H-how did you get in here?” he finally managed to say.

“I’ll explain it to you later,” the man said very unhelpfully. “What is more important right now is that you get out of this hospital.”

“I don’t know how, they locked me up and I can’t speak to anyone, I can’t –“ He had to stop himself before he started hyperventilating.

“I’ll get you help,” the man promised. “I can’t do much because I can only visit and show you my memories, not share any abilities with you – after all, I’m not in your cluster – but I will reach out to the others as soon as I can.”

“What are you even talking about? Who are you?” Aaron exclaimed. Nothing the other said made any kind of sense to him.

“My name is David Wymack. That’s all I can tell you right now”, the man replied. “I came looking for you so that I could connect to you and warn you of the danger you’re in. Your intuition is right, Proust’s operation is indeed designed to lobotomize you. I have to go now but remember to resist him as long as possible and I promise, you will get out of here.”

With that, he disappeared right before Aaron’s eyes, leaving him utterly alone and afraid. 

It seemed like Proust was right: he really was losing his mind.

 

*

 

“I don’t think my medication is working,” Andrew said.

He watched Bee’s reaction closely. She seemed concerned, at first, frowning a little behind her horn-rimmed glasses. Then, she tucked her emotions away safely, so she could focus on his instead.

“Why do you think that, Andrew?” she finally asked.

He took a sip from his mug of hot chocolate, set it back down again, tapped his fingers lightly against his right armband, and planned his words carefully. It was never easy to talk to Bee, to tell her so much about himself and make himself vulnerable in front of her. 

Silence and indifference were his preferred methods, but he was slowly learning how communicating more clearly could help, as well.

“I’ve been seeing things that aren’t there,” he said at last. 

Bee, who had waited patiently until he was ready, scribbled something on her notepad. It was a new one, its cover white with a pattern of little orange foxes, Andrew noted.

“Okay. Is this the first time you have experienced hallucinations?”

“Yes.”

“And since when and how frequent have these occurred, now?”

“Three times in the last two days.” 

There had been the woman in his classroom, the presence he’d felt on his way to the library yesterday, and the boy who he had for some reason even started talking to today.

“Are you experiencing any other symptoms?”

“A persistent headache. Not sure if it’s related, though.”

“But the medication you’re taking right now has shown positive results, yes?” 

“You don’t believe me.”

It was a statement, not a question. He was already used to it, but somehow, he hadn’t expected it from her.

“I do believe you,” Bee said firmly. “You have never been anything but honest to me in our sessions. I am merely asking because I would take this into account when looking for different meds for you. We know more about what works and what doesn’t now,” she explained calmly.

After a moment of consideration, he nodded.

“It’s done its job for the last few months,” he answered her initial question.

Bee was just starting to note down his response when it happened. 

One moment, there was only an empty space next to where she was sitting, and seconds later, there was a boy standing right beside her who looked just like Andrew.

Andrew went completely rigid, his fingers digging into the material of the armchair he was sitting in and stared at the boy.

The hallucination stared right back. He was wearing a hospital gown, and his eyes were bloodshot as if he had been crying. 

“Help me,” he whispered, extending a shaking hand towards him.

Andrew couldn’t help but flinch backwards.

“What is happening right now, Andrew?” Bee’s voice interrupted his stupor. 

She must have noticed his change in posture. He briefly slid his gaze over to her, the worry now apparent on her face, and then back to the image his brain had composed.  
“Can you tell me what you are seeing?” she asked.

“Myself,” he grit out. His reflection finally retracted his arm, starting to pull at strands of his hair instead and sinking to a crouched position on the floor.

“Are you seeing yourself exactly as you are right now? Are there any differences?” Bee pulled him back to reality.

“I’m wearing hospital clothes, and the haircut is not the same,” he slowly described. Focusing on the details made him gradually come back to himself, while Bee was writing down his words.

After a couple of minutes, the other Andrew disappeared with a final gasp. 

Andrew blinked a few times, until he was sure his hallucination was gone, and then allowed himself to release the tension in his body.

“Is it over?” Bee asked.

He only nodded, feeling like he had used up all of his words for today.

“I see,” she said, without any judgment. “I would like to discuss what happened more, but we’re already out of time for this session. Will you be alright to go home right now?”

He nodded again, stiffly.

“Good. I would like to make it our goal to find out what might be possible triggers for these hallucinations in our next session,” Bee told him. “For now, I’ll give you a different prescription to try out.”

 

*

“Excuse me, do you sell sleeping pills here?” Matt asked one of the clerks at the convenience store. 

He’d stopped there on his way home after his shift, his thoughts spinning round and round so much already that he knew he would not be able to fall asleep without help.

“Second aisle to the left,” the clerk muttered and went back to filling out his crossword puzzle.

It was so late at night that nobody else was in the tiny store. Matt slowly wandered over to the medicine aisle and started looking for a Somnil when the bell at the entrance chimed.

A scruffy-looking middle-aged man made his way inside, hands stuffed into the pockets of a leather jacket.

Matt frowned when he started coming closer, until suddenly, he recognized him - 

“Hello,” the man said, coming to a stop right in front of him. “My name is David Wymack.”

“I know who you are,” Matt said, feeling a sudden jolt when he met the other’s stare.

“You know what they told you, and you know what your senses are telling you. The question is, Matt, which of the two are you going to trust?” Wymack asked, pulling his hands out of his pocket and crossing his arms.

“How do you know my name?” Matt returned the question.

“She told me,” Wymack supplied cryptically.

“Who?”

“Kayleigh, the woman that gave birth to you, just before she took her life.”

“She shot herself,” Matt said. “So it wasn’t a dream, after all.”

“Yeah,” Wymack replied, pausing for a moment with something like regret in his eyes, before he seemed to collect himself again. “We all experience many births and deaths during our lives, but few know what it means to be reborn a sensate.”

“A what?” Matt was quickly getting tired of the other’s unhelpful answers.

“You have a migraine. You've had it since you saw her,” Wymack explained. “It will last for several more days. When mine finally ended, I cried like a baby, but that's just the beginning. You will start to feel strange things. You will feel snow in the middle of the summer, rain when there isn't a cloud in the sky. You'll feel anger and joy and pain, even pleasure without any reason.”

Matt just stared at him in confusion. “What are you even talking about?”

“I don't have much time to explain,” Wymack said annoyed. “There's a plane leaving in an hour and I have to be on it.”

“Well, then explain whatever it is that you want to tell me in a more understandable way,” Matt couldn’t help but burst out in frustration.

“There is a boy in South Carolina - Aaron Minyard. He needs your help. That’s the most important thing that I have to tell you,” Wymack said, and then turned around as if to leave.

“Wait!” Matt called out. “You’re not going anywhere. I'm still a cop, I can't just let you go.”

“I'm not the enemy,” Wymack told him.

“Well, the FBI would like to disagree,” Matt said and prepared to attack the other to prevent him from escaping, but Wymack had different ideas as he ducked out of his reach and made a run for the exit.

Matt sprinted after him, cursing the fact that he had to turn in his gun after his shifts. When he reached the door, Wymack was already climbing into a car and pulling out of the parking lot.

“Fuck,” he swore under his breath, scrambled into his own crappy car and floored the gas pedal. He managed to follow Wymack for a few miles, although the other was swerving lanes and racing over the speed limit.

“Let me go, Matt,” Wymack’s voice suddenly reached him, and Matt nearly slammed the brakes. “What the fuck?!”

Wymack was sitting right next to him, while his car was still speeding down the road up ahead.

“Oh my God, I'm losing my mind,” Matt shook his head, trying to will this image of Wymack to disappear again.

“No, it's just expanding,” the other replied, and then was gone, only for Matt to find himself in the passenger seat of a strange car, with Wymack at the steering wheel instead.

“Well done,” the older man remarked, turning slightly towards him and raising an eyebrow. “As you can see, the connection flows both ways, which raises the question: If you're here, who's driving back there?”

With a jolt, Matt was pushed back into his own body in his car, and narrowly avoided crashing into a traffic sign. Cursing some more, he yanked the steering wheel around and sped up.

Finally, he caught up to Wymack’s car, passed him and cut him off, bracing himself for the impact.

The other car crashed into his, and everything went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, listen, Wymack is probably a bit OOC but that’s because Jonas is pretty different from him and I’m giving him his weird, cryptic, and unhelpful dialogue lmao. I need to figure out how to combine Wymack’s straightforwardness with Jonas’ mysterious self …
> 
> Also, how did Wymack even find Matt? Did he somehow know where he worked and followed him after his shift?? We will never know since Sense8 works in mysterious and sometimes slightly illogical ways lmao
> 
> Anyways, hope you enjoyed this chapter - please let me know in the comments or find me on [tumblr](https://franzithebookworm.tumblr.com)!


	3. Smart Money Is on the Skinny B*tch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Renee and Allison finally meet each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for the lovely comments!
> 
> After this update, I have to confess it might take a while longer for me to post again because I will be on vacation, and afterwards uni starts again and I'll be moving to a new apartment, but I'll try to update as soon as possible.
> 
> Thank you again [@neverlost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neverlost/) for beta-reading!
> 
> Also, a little fun fact on the side: the chapter titles correspond to the episode titles of sense8, and in the beginning I wanted to try to fit in a quote each chapter that referenced the title, but it didn't quite work out ... oh well
> 
> Please read the warnings for this chapter carefully, as the ending might be upsetting. I also updated the tags to include a warning for transphobia.
> 
> I hope you enjoy the new chapter!

Warnings: forced hospitalization, catcalling, transphobia, use of the t-slur, transphobic violence and attempt to assault

 

Matt woke up slowly, feeling disoriented.

There was a steady beeping sound coming from nearby, and when he moved, he could feel hard linen sheets unlike his soft ones at home. 

Where was he?

“Good, you’re awake,” said a voice next to him when his eyes fluttered open. It seemed like he was in a hospital room, but he couldn’t quite remember what had happened that made him end up in here.

“You were in an accident,” the nurse that had spoken before explained. “Luckily you didn’t sustain any major injuries, but you have a mild concussion and the MRI showed some unusual brain activity, so we want to keep you under surveillance for a while.”

She got him a glass of water that he accepted gratefully. 

“The other officers who brought you in last night said we should give you special attention, that you're a hero who arrested a terrorist,” she said curiously, and it all came back to him.

Wymack at the grocery store, the car chase, the crash -

“I have to go,” he said, hastily swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. 

“Hey, didn’t you listen to me? You can’t just leave – hey!” the nurse shouted after him, but he was already out of the door.

He didn’t have the time to stay under surveillance because of a mild concussion – and that unusual brain activity? If Wymack was to be believed, this was not something that could be explained medically.

For now, he had to find Wymack and get answers out of him, about this “sensate” thing he kept talking about, this Aaron Minyard that he had mentioned was in danger, and about whether he knew something about the woman in the warehouse and the girl, Dan, that Matt had seen.

He took the next cab to the precinct, hoping that the people at the hospital wouldn’t try to get him back into one of their rooms, and arrived only to find Agent Browning just stepping out of the building.

“Oh hey, Boyd, right?” Browning said when he saw him and gave him an approving nod. “You're the man of the hour. Good work out there!”

“Thank you,” Matt replied, keeping a hand against the wall of the building to steady himself. “I actually wanted to ask you something about Wymack –“

“Are you sure you should even be up?” Browning interrupted him. “You don’t look too well.”

“It’s nothing,” Matt shoved the other’s concern aside. “I really need to talk to him though, it’s important.”

“Excuse me, but I don’t think that will be possible. Wymack’s on lockdown right now, and my men from the FBI are handling it from here, so don’t worry about it, alright? You’ve done enough for us, now enjoy your five minutes of fame, and stop trying to make six out of it.”

With that, Browning seemingly deemed the conversation to be over and got into his car.

Matt sighed, running his hand through his hair. He needed to figure out some other way to contact Wymack.

*

Dan’s phone vibrating was what startled her awake.

She reached for it, immediately alert, and sighed in relief when she saw who was calling her.

“Gabriela, hey,” she answered the phone, sitting up slowly.

“Where are you, Dani – are you alright?” her stage sister asked worried. “You went with these kinda sketchy guys into one of the private rooms and then we just didn’t see you at all anymore and around five in the morning Maria starts closing and she found those two men dead? And now the police are everywhere, and you’re just gone - what happened?”

“Gabi, breathe, please, I’m safe, okay?” Dan replied, although she wasn’t quite sure whether that was true. “Actually, could I maybe stay with you for the time being?”

“I mean, sure,” Gabi said, “but first you have to tell me what is going on!”

Dan was still pretty shaken from what had happened the night before, but she managed to explain most of it to her friend. 

Afterwards, she packed her things and met Gabi at the police station, since she didn’t want to go back to the club for the time being, and the police wanted to take her statement as an eyewitness.

“So, you work in this … establishment,” the officer said with a raised eyebrow.

“I do,” Dan answered. “I do, because I am a good dancer, and the tuition for studying physical education and dance at university doesn’t pay itself.”

The officer somehow managed to look half embarrassed by his own prejudice and half offended by her confidence.

“Anyways, I’m not here to discuss my job, right?” Dan said, and the interview went on.

“So, just to make sure, you’re saying there were two briefcases in the room before you left? And you didn’t take any of them?” the clerk asked at last.

“No, why would I?” Dan frowned. “Like I said, I was very shocked by what I’d just seen, so I just got out of there as fast as I could.” She shuddered when she thought back to the state she’d been in. 

“Well, the problem is that we found only one briefcase in that room,” the officer explained. “So if you didn’t take it, the question is – who did?”

Dan felt slightly unsettled when she came out of the interrogation room. What if the police were right and someone had stolen the second briefcase? Who was this person, and were they dangerous to her?

She was glad to see Gabi waiting for her on one of the benches outside. “Thank you for looking after my stuff,” she said, giving her a tight hug. “And for letting me stay with you, of course.”

“I’m not going to let you be alone in your tiny apartment when something this scary just happened to you, Dani,” her friend replied. “Come on, let’s go home.”

As they walked, Dan remembered something else. “Actually, I think I haven’t told you everything after all,” she said. “I’ve been having these strange dreams or – or visions, and I don’t know what they mean.”

Gabi stared at her. “Okay, colour me intrigued. You’ve got to tell me all about that.”

*

A few thousand miles up north, Aaron woke up when someone tried to open the door he had fallen asleep against.

“Oh, you shouldn't be out of bed,” the nurse said when she saw him shivering on the floor. She set her tray of medicine aside and helped him back to the bed.  
He tried to struggle against her grip, but he was still too out of it for it to achieve much.

“Ok, good, now Dr Proust needs you on this medication,” the nurse said once she had gotten him settled. 

“What even is this?” he asked and squinted at the pills she offered him. “I’m not taking these if I don’t know what they’re for.”

The nurse sighed. “I’m sorry, Mr Minyard, but if you won’t cooperate, I’ve been instructed to use force. You are not in your right mind, and you cannot make these decisions for yourself right now.”

She pressed a button on her pager, and seconds later, two members of what seemed like hospital security entered the room.

“Hey, no, no, this isn’t legal, you can’t do this,” Aaron protested, throwing himself off the bed again in an attempt to get to the door.

He stood no chance against them when they shackled him to the bed and forced the medicine down his throat.

*

Hours later, the medication had clouded his mind so much that they had taken off the restraints again. No harm could be done by him right now, that was for sure.

He was curled up on his side, to weak to move, when the phone on the bedside table suddenly rang.

With shaking hands, he reached for it. Was this another one of his hallucinations? Was it Wymack again, here to tell him he needed to resist Proust?

He picked up the phone.

“Hello?” he spoke hesitantly into it.

“Aaron? Oh thank God, finally –“

That was Katelyn’s voice, wasn’t it?

“Katelyn, is that really you?” he croaked.

“Of course it’s really me. You sound horrible, babe,” she sounded worried. “As soon as I heard that you’d fallen unconscious during your shift I rushed here, but the staff told me I can’t visit you because we’re not married yet? I don’t know what bullshit that is, but I haven’t found a way to your room yet without being kicked out, so I just tried your room phone,” she explained.

“God, that’s what I’ve been saying,” Aaron almost laughed and sobbed at the same time. He couldn’t believe he was really talking to Katelyn again. “It’s bullshit that they won’t let you visit.”

“Yeah,” Katelyn said. “Listen, I don’t really know what’s going on, so why did they bring you here?”

He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts before he answered. “There’s this neurosurgeon specialist here, Proust. He says they discovered on my scans I have undifferentiated frontal lobe syndrome, and they need to operate immediately, but Katelyn, something’s not right. He’s forcing me to take medication without telling me what it is, and they’ve been chaining me to my bed, I just, you need to trust me, I’m not saying this because I’m going insane, because I’m not, this can’t be real –“

He found himself gasping for breath again.

“Aaron, Aaron, shh. It will all be okay. I believe you, I trust you more than anyone in this world,” Katelyn insisted. “This really sounds sketchy at best, and illegal at its worst. Now it’s your turn to trust in me that I will tear this hospital down before I let anyone touch that beautiful brain of yours.”

“God, I love you,” he managed to get out between his panicked breaths. “But what if Proust is right? I’ve really been hearing and feeling and seeing things that aren’t there – right before I fell unconscious, I hallucinated this guy that talked to me, and later, I saw him again in this room –“

“You mean the guy who called the doctors when you fainted?”, Katelyn interrupted him. “We have him on camera, and cameras don't hallucinate, right?” 

“But –“

“Come on, don’t buy into whatever this doctor is trying to tell you. We’re going to find out what’s wrong, but not through an illegal surgery, so I'm gonna get you out of here, Aaron.”

“I love you,” he sighed one last time.

“I love you, too.”

And with that, she was gone.

*

The medication was still not working right. Andrew was sure of it, and that thought followed him everywhere throughout the day.

Theoretically, he knew that it took time to adjust to new meds, especially since he’d just gotten them yesterday, but he felt so outside of his own skin that he decided to visit Bee’s office unannounced.

He normally only had weekly sessions, but Bee had offered from the beginning that he could come in at any time if there was something urgent to discuss.

Andrew knew there probably wasn’t anything she could really do at this point, but he felt too restless and unstable – which was exactly what his meds were meant to counter, so there his thoughts went full-circle again.

As he walked into the clinic, he saw someone exit the hallway where Bee’s office was located, and assuming this person had just finished their appointment with her, he barged right in.

The first thing he saw when he opened the door was that he had been right in his assessment and Bee was alone in the room. She was shaking what looked like a dark capsule out of a bottle of medicine into her hand.

But then she looked up, surprised at his sudden entrance, and their eyes met. He recoiled when he felt something shift inside of him. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Bee standing right next to him, while he was staring at her still sitting at her desk.

“Andrew, what –,“ both versions of Bee talked at the same time.

“Get away from me,” he got out, reaching for one of his knives in his armbands.

“Andrew, no, wait, I can explain, let me just –“

The version of Bee that was behind the desk swallowed the capsule she had been holding.

“Okay, this should start working in a minute, and we won’t be connected anymore, alright?” she said.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Andrew said, his knife now in the open and aimed at the hallucination of Bee at his side.

“Listen, Andrew, I think you should sit down so I can explain it to you. This is why I always take blockers, so I won’t invade any of my patients’ privacy, and I am terribly sorry that you surprised me while the effects were wearing off, this should never have happened. But everything makes so much more sense now, Andrew, you are not suddenly experiencing hallucinations when you never had them before, no, you are a sensate, same as me –“

“A what now?” Andrew interrupted her. He was still standing and staring at the both images of her. But at the same time, he also felt as if he was sitting right where the real Bee was, as if he were in two places at once.

Bee stood up slowly and lifted her hands to show that she meant no harm. The figure next to Andrew stayed as she were. When she opened her mouth, it felt like she talked right inside Andrew’s head.

“A sensate, a homo sensorium, is a species that can connect with others of its kind through eye contact amongst other things, which will result in visiting the other. That’s what I’m doing right now, and I can’t really turn it off until the blockers start to work – Andrew, I’m sure this is overwhelming to you, and I once again apologize for making you experience this – how about as soon as the connection is cut off we can talk it out and you can tell me how you feel?“

“ _How I feel_?” he ground out. “I feel like you are in my head, right now, _and I want you to get out of there_.” His voice was not raised, but it was a threat none the less. He stalked over to her desk, focusing on his real body moving instead of all the other presences he was sensing in the room.

“You have no right to be in there,” he tapped his temple with his knife-less hand, “and fuck you for ‘making me experience’ any of this. You know how I feel about being forced to do something, and yet here you are exploiting it anyways.”

All of a sudden, the second Bee and all the unsettling sensations that had come along with her disappeared. It was like a thread had been cut off.

Andrew swayed for a moment from the loss of the connection and the relief of finally being alone in his body again.

“Good,” he drawled out slowly, backing off with his knife still ready to attack. “Don’t think you’ll ever see me around here again,” he spat and then finally turned his back without sparing a last glance at her.

And to think that he had once trusted her more than anyone else. It seemed like he never learned his lesson, after all.

*

The church was empty when Renee came inside.

It was early afternoon on a weekday, so she hadn’t really expected anyone to be there, anyways.

She made her way quietly to one of the side altars and settled on a pew, fiddling with her cross necklace.

“I know I am not important enough to deserve your attention when there are so many terrible things wrong in this world,” she began in a low voice. “But I would like to tell you about how my life is going this week.”

She talked for a while, about her work at the youth crisis center and her latest visit to her foster-mother.

“You know that I am a bad person trying very hard to be a good person,” she finally said. “There are some things, though, that I haven’t been able to leave in my past life. But I think I have finally made my peace with what I’ve learnt there and found a way to turn it into something I will hopefully be proud of.”

A few hours later, she arrived at the event that she had help to organize, a martial arts competition that served as fundraising for the crisis center.

A crowd was already gathered around the ring, waiting for her, anticipating her entrance. It would be the first time that she would fight in public like this, instead of on the street like the old days.

She saw a few familiar faces when she made her way through the masses and smiled at them. Hopefully she’d end up raising a lot of money today to help them, and she would probably also earn even more respect from them.

Finally, she reached the ring, ducking under the ropes to get inside. Her hands were already wrapped, her feet bare, and her hair tied back to get it out of her eyes. The crowd roared alive. Bets were exchanged.

She greeted the referee, gave her opponent a nod, and the fight begun.

*

Meanwhile, Allison was on her way to work when it happened. 

She was already late and decided to take a shortcut through a small alley full of garbage cans. Hoping the smell wouldn’t stick to her clothes, she hurried through the narrow passage when a guy who was loitering around there catcalled her.

She ignored him, annoyed at the guy’s insistence when he started following her.

“Hey pretty, come on, don’t pretend you can’t hear me,” he drawled and came closer. Why was this alley so long?

Then, suddenly, there was a hand on her arm and an even more disgusting smell than the garbage around her. He was drunk at nine in the morning already.

He yanked her around, and she promptly kicked him between the legs with her heels, searching with her other arm frantically for her pepper spray.

She couldn’t find it, no matter how hard she looked for it, and then the guy had a knife in her face all of a sudden.

“What the fuck – hey, is anyone here? Help –“ she started screaming, but was silenced when the guy pressed his knife against her throat.

He frowned, and then seemed to realize something. “Wait, I’ve seen you around here before. Aren’t you that tranny that works over there?” he waved his other arm in the direction that she had been walking in. “I’m gonna teach you a lesson, bitch.”

She flinched back, but his hand grabbed a bunch of her hair and pulled. This time, she couldn’t hold back a scream, and felt the knife digging into her throat.

“Ohh, so this isn’t a wig? So not everything ‘bout you is fake, huh?”

Shit. Her mind was blank, all the self-defense she had learnt was gone, and all she could think was just: _Help. I have to get help_.

*

That’s when she found herself next to an Asian girl in a boxing ring. 

Allison couldn’t do anything but stare for a moment, mesmerized by the other’s movement. 

The girl had white short hair which ended in pastel rainbow colours and was tied back into a small ponytail at her nape that was slowly getting loose. 

Her face glistened from sweat, but there was something about her that almost made her seem as if she were glowing. 

And, most importantly, she was beating the shit out of her opponent in some kind of martial arts way.

Then, the girl turned around for a single moment and stared right into Allison’s eyes, and they both were thrown back to where the drunk transphobic asshole was still threatening Allison.

The girl with the rainbow hair seemed to understand the situation immediately, and seconds later Allison felt like she was seeing everything from the outside.

Instead of her being caught in the guy’s grip, it was now the other woman who freed herself and disabled him with a couple of well-aimed blows. Soon, he was crumpled down on the floor, knife long discarded and whimpering pathetically.

Allison herself finished the job by digging her heel into his neck. “See how you like that, huh?”

Back in Korea, Renee pinned down her opponent as well.

They grinned at each other, oceans between them but only seconds apart.

“I don’t know what just happened, but that was pretty damn amazing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t really know anything about adjusting medication, since I’m not taking any. I read up on it a bit, but if I’ve said something terribly wrong please don’t hesitate to call me out on it.
> 
> Also, time zones and time spans in general are so confusing, and the series doesn’t help with that either. I feel like half the time the scenes don’t make any sense if I set them at a particular time of day, but then the other characters that overlap are in different timezones and I’m imagining their scenes at a particular time of day as well, and it just ends up being not quite how I wanted it to be? Oh well …
> 
> Also, when I say that Renee works at a youth crisis center, I imagine her working at DDing Dong LGBTQ Youth Crisis Support Center. You can find them [here](https://www.ddingdong.kr/xe/introduce#eng) . I only know about them since I am a SHINee fan and people donated a lot to them in Jonghyun’s name for his birthday and other projects, and I believe they are a cause worth supporting, so I’m adding the info here and maybe some of you may be interested in helping them stay open!
> 
> Once again, please let me know what you think in the comments or on my  
>  [tumblr](https://franzithebookworm.tumblr.com)!


	4. What's Going On?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which threats are made (pt.1) and an escape is attempted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while, thank you all for your patience! Once again, it might take a while to get the next few chapters out because I am very busy with moving and starting a new semester at uni - please bear with me for the time being.
> 
> For now, I hope you enjoy this new chapter! Thank you Niki [@neverlost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neverlost/) for beta-reading.
> 
> Please read the warnings, as I changed them again and added them at the top of the chapter. (I added rape/non-con as a warning but there will probably only be mentions of past abuse etc. As always, you can find additional warnings in front of each chapter.)
> 
> Naturally, the soundtrack to this chapter is What’s Up by 4 Non Blondes - listen to it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NXnxTNIWkc)
> 
> Additionally, treat yourself to the sense8 version of the song [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jref4bWvRLs)

Warnings: mentions of past rape, mentions of gang violence and very minor character death, blackmailing, forced hospitalization

 

“So, who are you? And how does this work, exactly?” the blonde woman asked.

It was now several hours after the fight, shortly after the sun had finally sunk behind the horizon of skyscrapers, and Renee had just started to walk back home when the woman had reappeared.

Apparently, she was now on her lunch break and had found herself in Korea again for some unknown reason.

Renee felt glad that the other was back, although she didn’t quite know why. It was probably simply because she felt better knowing the woman was okay after that earlier attack.

“My name is Renee,” she answered her question, making her way further down the poorly lit street. “And I have no idea how this works either – or why this started happening at all.”

“I’m Allison,” the other offered, strolling alongside of her while occasionally taking a bite of her sandwich.

Renee was pretty sure she was not imagining that she could taste it herself without being the one to eat it. The whole thing was just very strange.

“I have a theory on what started it, though,” Allison said conspiratorially and leaned closer towards Renee, as if they were in danger of someone overhearing.

Some strands of her long, straightened hair brushed against Renee’s shoulder, and it felt so real she had to remind herself that Allison was not actually beside her.

“You saw it too, right?” Allison whispered now. “That woman in that dark place, reaching out to you?”

“I know what you mean,” Renee said. “Somehow, she is connected to all of this, and we are connected through her. But it’s not just us two, is it? Have you seen anybody else these past few days?”

“Not really? I feel like I’ve seen glimpses of other people’s lives, but mostly I’ve just felt a lot and heard and smelled and tasted things that shouldn’t have been possible for me to experience where I live,” Allison explained.

“That fight earlier was the first time that I met someone like you. I still don’t really know what to think about it all, whether it is real or just a very vivid and very long dream.”

She paused for a moment.

“What about you? What makes you say that it isn’t just the both of us?”

“Well, there was this guy –“ Renee started to say, when someone suddenly yanked her into a corner of the street and Allison disappeared with a surprised expression on her face.

She must have been really distracted not to notice someone sneaking up to her, Renee thought only for a moment before she freed herself and wrenched her attackers arm back until he had to let go of the knife he was carrying.

“Okay, okay, I see you still got it in you, Natalie,” the guy said and grinned.

Even without hearing her old name, the tattoo on his forearm was all too telling. He was one of Joongki’s.

“I’m not Natalie anymore,” Renee said firmly. “What do you want.”

“Aw, come on, girl, don’t be like that,” he drawled, struggling against her hold unsuccessfully. “I just wanna talk.”

“I may not be Natalie anymore, but I still know when someone’s lying to me,” Renee told him and threw him against the wall, so she had more power over him.

She was beginning to get pissed off at this guy, Natalie creeping up to take her place, and she really wanted to get out of this situation and back to her night-time stroll with Allison.

She hadn’t been in contact with Joongki’s gang for years and had kept out of their territories to avoid them. So why was he sending his people after her now?

“Well, you see, Joongki’s kind of done something stupid,” the boy finally explained now. “Don’t tell him I said that though. Got himself into some drama with Sungjae over this chick.”

Renee could barely suppress a flinch at the mention of the name. There were bad memories lurking in her mind, attached to both Joongki and Sungjae.

“Anyways, they got into a fight last night in his apartment and Sungjae ended up dead. No witnesses, no nothing. Nobody’s called the police yet, and usually Joongki’s good at disappearing bodies, but a bunch of Sungjae’s buddies are suspicious and might even go so far as to call a cop and turn on him. So, he thought of the perfect cover-up. A way to kill two birds with one stone.”

He paused for a moment to keep her in suspense.

“Consider this a warning that you’re going to find something very ugly in your pretty little apartment.”

“He wants to pin it on me,” Renee ground out.

“Ex-gang member kills her rapist in revenge after attempted home invasion. Sounds like a nice headline, right?”

“Fuck you. What makes you think I’m going to go along with that?” she asked, but somehow already knew there would be no escape from this.

“So much for your innocent church girl act, huh? Did you expect anyone to actually believe that?” He bared his teeth again, his confidence to have the upper hand even though she was pinning him against the wall unnerving.

“I didn’t come here to give you a heads-up. As I said, this is a warning. It’s simple, really: follow our orders or we will hurt the ones you love. We can start with some of those bastards from your workplace, but who knows what we’ll have in store for your perfect new mother, hmm? Heard she’s pretty for her age, too –“

He crumbled as Renee slammed her fist into his stomach, finally wiping the grin of his face. Before Natalie could completely take over, she let him fall to the ground and placed a kick to his sternum for good measure.

Then, she turned around and walked in the other direction, the painful wheezing of the messenger slowly fading behind her.

She would not go home tonight.

*

The walls of Pollsmoor Maximum Security Prison stretched up in front of Matt.

He had just tried to get a hold of Wymack’s whereabouts again, to no avail. The FBI refused to let him see him, and he was slowly getting frustrated.

He needed to know what was happening, what he was supposed to do with the information Wymack had given him.

Sighing deeply, he went back to his car.

He had barely sat down behind the wheel when he felt a presence next to him.

“Oh no, I’m not doing this again – this is a rented car, Wymack, I really can’t afford to wreck it, alright?”

“You shouldn’t have wrecked your own car in the first place, smart-ass,” the man in the passenger seat said.

Matt raised an eyebrow at the insult.

“Yeah, I can sing a different tune, Matt,” Wymack continued. “I told you to let me go; and see what you’ve done now.”

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” Matt grumbled. “Your weird explanations didn’t exactly help your case either.”

“But they made you curious, hm? Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here looking for me,” Wymack nodded at the prison building in front of them.

“So, you are somewhere in there,” Matt replied. “But you’re also here?”

“Yes, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Wymack said, still a tad annoyed. “I can show you where I am right now - in solitary confinement.”

And with that, Matt found himself in a prison cell right next to the man who he had put there.

“This is called _visiting_ ,” the other explained. “Members of a cluster do it instinctively and others, like us, outside the cluster, can visit if they've made visual contact, eye-to-eye.”

“Okay, so visiting means that I can see where you are and what you are doing as if I were there myself?”

“Even better, you can experience where I am with all of your senses, not merely your sight,” Wymack pointed to the wall he was leaning against. “Touch this.”

Matt obeyed and felt the cool stones underneath his hands, could smell the slightly moldy air in the room and hear the guards walking by outside of the cell.

“This shouldn’t be possible,” he exclaimed with wide eyes. “But why couldn’t I contact you earlier then?”

“Visiting is not calling or texting someone. It's not something you make happen, but something you let happen. You’ll learn it in time,” Wymack assured him. “You also have to learn the difference between _visiting_ and _sharing_.”

“Sharing is something you can only do inside your cluster, accessing each other's knowledge, language, skill - have you experienced anything like that in the last couple of days?”

Matt nodded. This morning, he had suddenly started talking in Korean to Laila, who had been very confused and had inquired since when he had the time to learn another language. She’d grown even more worried about his well-being when he’d told her that he didn’t.

“I think I know what you are talking about, now, but what is this cluster you keep telling me about?” he asked.

“A cluster is the group of sensates that you were born with. You share a special bond, and you will slowly begin to meet your seven other selves,” Wymack responded. “That is, only if you hurry, because one of you is about to be destroyed. Aaron Minyard - you have to save him, Matt. Remember, you are no longer just you.”

“So, what are they going to do with you now?” Matt asked finally.

“BPO is going to find me,” the older man said, seeming already resigned to what was about to happen. “Try and tell everyone that you can reach what I have told you so far. I wish I could do more to protect you but-“

A couple of figures clad in hazmat suits suddenly burst through the door, dragging Wymack out of his cell, and Matt was abruptly ripped away from his visit.

“Now what or who exactly is BPO?” he asked his empty car.

So much for finding answers.

 

*

Eden’s Twilight was packed with all kinds of people tonight. 

The theme was 90’s hits, so Roland had pushed some truly hideous colourful combination of clothes into Andrew’s arms when he’d come in that he had immediately discarded in favour of his usual dark uniform.

It was enough that he had to endure Roland looking like he had sprung out of an episode of _Fresh Prince_ and humming along to Destiny’s Child. Andrew was really not in the mood for this.

So, he resigned himself to making drinks, wiping the tables and trying not to make any conversation whatsoever, all while thinking about what had happened the day before.

These were the facts: Unless Bee was lying, he was not having unexpected psychotic symptoms. Instead, he was … a sensate, whatever that was supposed to mean, same as her. She could access his mind, as could the other people he had been seeing. 

She had intruded his privacy on the deepest level. On the other hand, he clearly remembered her saying that she had wanted to prevent that by taking the black little capsules she had been holding. Now, how would he get one of those blockers for himself? 

There wasn’t any other option than to return to Bee’s office, which he had sworn not to do. Maybe he could just break in and steal that bottle of medicine when she wasn’t there.

Fuck. He really needed a cigarette.

It was two in the morning when he finally got to go on a break.

He had a stick lit as soon as he was out of the door, inhaling the fresh air after the sticky atmosphere of the club. 

Taking a drag of his cigarette, he leaned against the rough wall of the back alley and let his lighter dance through his fingers.

The sounds of the party going on inside still reached his ears, although muted, and the bass vibrating through the wall went right through his body, but he still felt more at ease than he had for the last three days.

“You again,” an already familiar voice spoke up.

Of course, the moment couldn’t have lasted for more than half a minute.

Andrew sighed, and continued to smoke in silence, choosing to ignore the boy.

The other luckily kept quiet for some time, seemingly occupied with something else wherever he was. Then, he started to get antsy when he saw Andrew was still next to him.

“Why do you keep showing up at the most inconvenient times?” the boy finally blurted out. “I have a job interview, you know?”

“Why do you think I can control when to appear in your life?” Andrew replied, blowing smoke in the other’s direction. The guy glared at him in return.

After some more silence from Andrew and some more anxious fidgeting from the boy, he decided to speak up. Something about him sparked his curiosity.

“So,” he said, still not facing the other. “You are not a hallucination.”

“I told you so, didn’t I?”

Andrew raised an eyebrow at that and finally turned to stare at the boy.

“But you don’t add up.”

The guy flinched, hiding his reaction quickly underneath a collected mask.

“I’m not a math problem.”

“I’ll still solve you,” Andrew shrugged. Something wasn’t right about this guy and he was interested enough to feel the need to find out what it was – just in case he would be a threat, of course.

“I’ll make you a deal,” he said after some consideration. “Tell me a truth about yourself, and I’ll return the favour.”

“Why should I?” the boy said warily.

“Aren’t you curious who it is you’re connected to?” he replied.

It wasn’t like Andrew would have this connection for much longer, not if he would be successful in stealing Bee’s blockers. So, it would be best to take note of the other sensates, to assess their situation and whether they could cause him trouble before he disappeared.

The boy was still there, seemingly fighting against the right words.

“Alright … I’m going to tell you who I am … my name is Stefan,” he mumbled, staring at his worn-out shoes.

“That doesn’t sound all that convincing,” Andrew said harshly, tapping his cigarette against the wall. “I don’t appreciate being lied to.”

“I’m not lying,” the other insisted. “Stefan is the name I go by right now.”

“And what is your birth name, then?”

“That’s a truth for another time,” Stefan responded, his voice now much more sure of himself.

“Fair enough,” Andrew conceded. “What do you want to know?”

“What’s your name?”

“Andrew,” he said and took a last drag of his cigarette.

By the time he exhaled, Stefan had disappeared.

*

Andrew stayed outside for a couple more minutes, before heading back into Eden’s again.

Greeting Roland with a two-fingered salute, he busied himself with refilling the ice bucket and collecting trays of shot glasses.

Only a few minutes later, he was joined behind the bar by a blonde woman that definitely didn’t belong there.

Apparently, he couldn’t be left alone today.

“Where am I?” the woman asked curiously, inspecting the sticky counter and the masses of party-goers behind it. She had long blond hair that was pulled up into an immaculate ponytail, and a colour-coordinated outfit to go with her make-up.

Andrew was already annoyed by her, and he’d known her for two seconds.

He didn’t bother to answer her question. She could figure that one out for herself for all he cared.

She turned to him and inspected him the same way she had the club, an action that made his skin crawl. He really needed to find those blockers.

“So, Renee was right – I’m not only connected to her, but apparently also to you,” she said. “What’s your name? I’m Allison.”

He continued to rinse out some new glasses he’d gotten from the back instead of responding.

“Okay, be like that, then,” Allison told him after a beat. “I’m going to find out eventually, you’ll see!”

In that moment, a new song began playing, a guitar strumming to start it off, and the crowd roared when they recognized it. _What’s Up_ by 4 Non Blondes, Andrew’s brain supplied involuntarily.

Allison’s whole face lit up, and she started swaying to the music next to him.

“Oh, I love this song – come on, let’s dance!” she shouted over the music.

Andrew shot her a glare and she laughed, tipping her head back. “Figured you wouldn’t agree to that. At least I got a reaction out of you.”

And with that, she made her way onto the dance floor.

For some reason, Andrew found himself following her with his gaze. She seemed relatively harmless, but he would definitely need to get more information about her to be sure.

For now, she was lost in the sea of people, singing along to the chorus of the song.

 _And I say:_  
_Hey yeah yeah,_  
_Hey yeah yeah._  
_I said hey_  
_What's going on?_

Another voice right beside him joined in. A girl in loose pajamas with dark circles under her eyes was looking around the scene she had landed in tiredly, but the familiar music still seemed to inspire her to hum along.

She was soon accompanied by a far more awake black guy in a foreign police uniform who smiled at her in recognition. He nodded at Andrew when he seemed to sense that he was connected to him, and then dissolved in laughter when he and the girl sang horribly out of tune.

 _And I try_  
_Oh my god do I try_  
_I try all the time_  
_In this institution_

 _And I pray_  
_Oh my god do I pray_  
_I pray every single day_  
_For a revolution._

The both of them belted out the notes, facing each other now and completely in their own little world. So, those two would also need to be inspected by him as they seemed to be sensates as well, Andrew concluded, sliding a tray full of shots across the counter to a customer.

After that one had vanished into the crowd, a new one appeared out of nowhere: a tall, slim latino guy in a suit who leaned against the bar, already pretty drunk.

“Another bar,” he slurred. “At least there’s better music here, no jazz and no pretentious business people.”

He looked up at Andrew.

“Can you get me a Piña Colada?”

Andrew raised an eyebrow at that.

“What? I like pineapple,” the other said. “I always have to drink classic stuff at these meetings, let me enjoy that fruity shit, alright?”

Andrew shrugged and got to work, while the drunk guy slumped onto one of the stools.

He definitely needed to figure out how the fuck this worked, Andrew thought as the guy practically inhaled his cocktail. Would other people see him too, or where did the very real drink go when a sensate consumed it?

Meanwhile, suit guy was nodding his head along to the beat as well.

 _And so I cry sometimes_  
_When I'm lying bed_  
_Just to get it all out_  
_What's in my head_  
_And I, I am feeling a little peculiar_

And there was Stefan again, somewhere near the exit while also right next to Andrew. He was constantly scanning the entire room, the fearful rabbit that he was. He looked annoyed when he spotted Andrew again, as if it was his fault that he was back.

Andrew would deal with him later, he decided, and his gaze settled on the next unfamiliar face. It belonged to a girl with rainbow hair who had materialized near suit guy on a barstool. She was looking at the opposite wall with a vacant stare, not quite seeming to realize where she was.

When Allison saw her, she stopped singing and approached the girl as if they already knew each other. Andrew watched as Allison’s expression grew more and more concerned as she came nearer and the other did not react at all. The girl was obviously very distraught, though by what he would have to uncover later.

 _And so I wake in the morning_  
_And I step outside_  
_And I take a deep breath and I get real high_  
_And I scream from the top of my lungs_  
_What's going on?_

The song continued while Andrew assessed each and every one of them and made plans to confirm they would pose no danger. Only one person, the boy he had seen who had been identical to him, had not shown up. Maybe that had been a figment of his imagination, after all.

Seconds later, Andrew was proven wrong by a sudden weight on his wrists. When he looked down he discovered they were handcuffs, chaining him to another set of hands in front of him. His gaze travelled upwards until he was faced with his alter ego, still in the hospital gown.

“Help me,” the other repeated his plea from the last time they had seen each other. On the other side of the country, Andrew watched as the gurney the boy was strapped to was pushed towards an operating room.

Finally, the song came to an end.

*

 

It was early morning when they came for him.

“This is it,” the nurse was saying while she transferred him to a stretcher. “No need to worry, Dr Proust is getting ready for you and it will all be over before you know it.”

As soon as he was free of the restraints they had reinstalled the night before, Aaron tried to wriggle out of her grasp and make for the open door.

Immediately, she called for backup and two security guards came in once more to wrestle him onto the gurney and chain his limbs to the railings with metal handcuffs.

“No, no, no, don’t, please,” he burst out in panic.

But it was too late, he couldn’t do anything to resist the first injection of anesthetics and slowly drifted away while the corridors of the hospital flew by.

The last thing he saw out of the corner of his eye were three figures that seemed to be watching him closely.

“Help me,” he whispered, and finally sunk into nothingness.

*

Matt was the first to react when he found himself in Aaron Minyard’s body.  
He had done some basic research on the guy after Wymack had told him to save him – there wasn’t much online about him apart from a few mentions on Minyard’s former undergrad and medical schools, as well as his profile on the website of the hospital he currently worked at.

Of course, none of that could have prepared Matt for this situation.

What was useful, though, was the knowledge he had about the workings of handcuffs. Being a cop had to have its perks, after all.

Luckily, there was no staff around as they had parked the gurney in front of the operating room for a brief moment, so he shook off the drowsiness and general fatigue that pervaded Aaron’s whole body, and quickly pulled out the infusion needle that was stuck in his arm with his mouth.

The first cuff was the trickiest, as he had to use his constrained right hand to insert the needle and poke around until he got it to open.

After having regained feeling in the now freed hand, he moved onto the other and then did the same to the cuffs on his ankles. Slowly, he got up and stumbled out of the hallway into another corridor.

He reached the end of his wits, though, when he came across a door that was locked and intended for staff use only.

Matt was shoved away quickly by Andrew, who inspected the lock and began working on it with the infusion needle he had taken with him earlier.

His fingers were surprisingly still accustomed to the movements of picking a lock, a skill he’d taught himself in the Spear household and which had contributed to lead to his brief stay in juvie amongst other things.

At last, the lock clicked and Andrew slipped through the door right before a distraught nurse looking for Aaron turned around the corner.

Not bothering to waste time re-locking the door, Andrew walked down the hallway as fast as he could without attracting attention, but he realized that he had no idea where he was exactly in the hospital and how he would get his doppelgänger out of there.

“Let me,” someone said, and when he looked to the side, Stefan was there as if he had always been.

Stefan took over quickly, scanning the area with efficiency and weaving his way through the unfamiliar building as if he knew the layout by heart. He was just about to go for an elevator when a loud ringing noise started above his head.

Someone had triggered the fire alarm in the hospital, which prompted a hectic outpour of staff and panicked patients into the halls. Stefan sighed in relief. The crowd would make it much easier to escape unnoticed.

He joined in the people on their way out, jogging down the emergency staircase that led him to the foyer. It was a strange feeling to maneuver someone else’s body – a body that was weakened from medical treatments on top of that - but he managed to bring the other pretty close to the exit.

“We’re looking for a blond guy, about five feet tall,” he heard someone say nearby and turned his back to the person, hoping they wouldn’t see him in the masses of people.

“Hey, you over there – stop!” another person shouted. He was only a few meters away from the doors, but they were too close behind him, he wouldn’t be able to make it, he wouldn’t –

“Mr Keene, I told you I’d take you outside,” a female voice suddenly swooped in and the corners of something hard and metal in the hollow of his knees made his legs buckle. He fell backwards into what seemed to be a wheelchair and stared up disoriented into the face of a nurse who was pushing him outside. 

“He’s my patient, I don’t know who it is you’re looking for, but this is not him,” she called over her shoulder and finally they were out in the open, the fire alarm still ringing loudly in his ears.

The nurse helped him out of the wheelchair as soon as they were at the curb where a taxi was waiting for a couple to board. “I’m so sorry, we really need this now!” she shouted in apology towards the couple and held the car door open for Stefan to enter.

Security came running out of the building as she climbed in after him, but all they could do was stare at the taxi as it pulled out of the area and sped away.

At last, Stefan left and let Aaron come back again.

*

“I got you, I got you,” Katelyn was murmuring as he sank into her embrace exhaustedly. He had only vague memories of what had transpired in the last few minutes, as if he had not really been in his body while everything had happened around him.

The numbness he still felt slowly dissipated as Katelyn held him tight, right there in the backseat of an old taxi that was getting him farther and farther away from Proust and Easthaven with every second that passed.

“You saved me, you saved me,” he babbled into her shoulder and finally lifted his head to look up at her. “How did you do that?”

“I pulled the fire alarm and disguised myself as one of their staff,” Katelyn answered, lifting her hand to wipe away a tear that had began rolling down his cheek. “The rest was all you, though. I don’t know how you did it, but suddenly you were down there in the lobby when I thought I’d been too late to stop the surgery …”

Her eyes were shining with tears as well as she pulled him into another hug. 

“Thank you, thank you, I love you so much,” Aaron sobbed, and then he was kissing her, putting all his love and gratefulness and confusion and relief into it.

“I love you too,” Katelyn was saying, over and over again between their kisses. “I’m so glad you are out of there.”

After a while, they calmed down a little, settling into the seat while still holding each other. Katelyn was stroking Aaron’s matte and sweaty hair as he was resting his head on her shoulder.

Aaron frowned as slowly the sound of a guitar trickled back into his mind. He recalled the same music had been following him around for hours today.

“What is it?” Katelyn asked gently.

“I've had this song stuck in my head all day,” he answered. “I said ‘Hey, hey yeah’,” he tried to sing, although it came out rather croaky.

“4 Non Blondes,” Katelyn smiled. “That's a perfect soundtrack for a lobotomy.”

She began to sing along quietly, while continuing to stroke his hair.

Aaron felt himself drift to sleep, the soothing motions and Katelyn’s voice lulling him softly.

 _And I say:_  
_Hey yeah yeah,_  
_Hey yeah yeah._  
_I said hey_  
_What's going on?_

He looked up at his fiancée drowsily one last time.  
Right before his eyes closed, she could hear him whisper in a broken voice.

“What's going on?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I read somewhere recently that Kevin likes pineapple, so I just went with that. I know in the books he drinks lots of vodka or something but here he’s gonna enjoy fruity cocktails once in a while. Andrew can’t stop me lmao
> 
> Also, for anyone that hasn’t seen sense8: I got Joongki’s name from a character of the show, Sun’s brother, although in this story, he won’t be related to Renee but just as much of an asshole as the character he’s based on (just as a heads-up …)
> 
> And by the way I started imagining Katelyn looking like Amanita in this fic because Neets is just so pretty and I love her a lot that’s all.
> 
> Thank you for reading!!


	5. Art Is Like Religion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Andrew makes a deal and threats are made (pt.2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! I'm finally back with another chapter!
> 
> I apologize for the longer wait, but I was and still kinda am drowning in schoolwork ...
> 
> But without further ado, here's another song for you: [Spirits](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpv-vGScrvU) by The Strumbellas, which is where the title of this story comes from. This song has been in my tfc playlist for ages because of its lyrics and I found it really fitting for this fic!
> 
> Again thank you to Niki [@neverlost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neverlost/) for reading over it.
> 
> Hope you all enjoy this chapter!

Warnings: abusive behavior on Mary’s side, violence

“Stefan, what is going on?”

Abram startled violently from his sleep, confused about where he was and most importantly, who he was supposed to be.

He looked up at his mother, whose fingers were still digging into his arm where she had grabbed him to pull him out of his slumber, and only then it came back to him.

Abram, 25, from Baltimore, USA, didn’t exist anymore. He was Stefan Koch, 19 years old, from Berlin, Germany.

Something cold trickled down his spine when he realized he had slipped up, if only just for a second.

“Answer my fucking question,” his mother hissed now, his arm throbbing in pain from her sharp nails. “You were humming in your sleep, and I want to know why you think this would be a good idea!”

Shit. That song from yesterday was still stuck in his head, along with the blond guy he had already told way more about himself than he should have.

At least the game of truth that they had started playing ensured that he wasn’t the only one giving up information. Still, it was unsettling to know that Andrew could barge in at any moment and disrupt the routine that Stefan and his mother had with each other.

It had always been only the two of them, ever since they’d first run away, and now all of a sudden there were so many more lives that seemed to be intertwined with his own somehow.

It was overwhelming, to say the least, and all that Stefan knew for sure was that his mother could never find out about it.

“I’m sorry,” he told her. “It won’t happen again.”

“It better not,” she answered and finally, finally let go.

Staying quiet meant they would be safe, after all.

*

The dressing room was bustling with noise and people.

“Are you done yet?” an exasperated Kevin asked the woman who was currently waving a brush around in his face.

“Honey, I haven’t even properly started,” she answered with fake indignation, then threw him a wink through the huge mirror on the make-up table in front of him. “Anything to make you even more handsome for the cameras.”

Kevin just scowled, not in the mood to put on his usual public-friendly smile. After that horrible migraine had finally ended, he had hoped to get some rest at last, but had woken up to a painful tug in his lower stomach that had transformed into an uncomfortable knot. Plus, he was perpetually irritated by everything around him.

He was silently freaking out about it, as he would really rather not be sick and have to miss training again.

Speaking of which, he was also annoyed since this was the third event in as many days that was merely publicity-related. Although he understood why these interviews and sponsorship meetings and advertisement shootings were necessary, his feet itched to get back on the court again.

At last, his stylist seemed content and let him go to join the actress he was going to be filming with on the set.

They were doing an ad for a perfume, both dressed in impeccable suits and make-up.

“Remember, Kevin, she’s your mysterious beauty and you’re the sexy businessman she keeps seeing everywhere,” the director told him excitedly, and gestured for them to take their positions.

Kevin took a deep breath, trying to shove aside his weird mood for the moment, and focused on his task.

Hopefully, the shoot would be over quickly and turn out okay.

*

“It was a complete disaster,” Kevin cried out into the mic of the hands-free phone system in his car.

“I’m sure it wasn’t that bad,” Jeremy tried to reassure him, but Kevin didn’t let him finish.

“I cried, Jeremy, I _cried_. I never do that, what the fuck is wrong with me? Tears are not hot. Tears are not sexy. That’s what the director said to me, alright? God, I’m a fucking mess.”

And to top all of that, he was now stuck in a traffic jam on his way to the stadium.

“You know that stomach pain I told you about? It’s gotten worse, what if it’s something serious, what if it’s cancer? Or – “

He was interrupted by a loud honk from a car beside him that was trying to cut over into his lane. 

“Hey! Yeah, fuck you too,” he shouted, making good use of his own horn in response. “My lane isn't going any faster, you fuck! I see you, you know, I see you with your fucking villain mustache, thinking you’re all better than me!”

“Calm down, Kevin, please,” Jeremy was saying, his voice a bit strained like it always got when Kevin was in one of those overly dramatic moods. “You don’t have cancer, and you need to take it easy on the road. Just take a deep breath, and you’ll be at the stadium in no time.”

Kevin gulped in a few wafts of the climatized air in his car, but he was still too upset to stop his rambling.

“The director called me a drama queen, can you believe that?”

Jeremy had the audacity to laugh. “To be fair, you can be quite the drama queen sometimes.”

Kevin ignored that comment in favor of trading insults with another idiot that didn’t know how to fucking drive properly.

When he turned his head in disgust from where the other driver had flipped him off, he nearly caused a collision himself as his formerly empty passenger seat was suddenly occupied.

“Please stop screaming,” the already familiar Asian woman with the colourful hair said quietly.

“I’m not screaming!” Kevin screamed. “Also, what are you doing here again?”

The woman offered no explanation, as she was seemingly distracted by something that was happening elsewhere. Instead, Jeremy’s worried voice reached Kevin once more.

“Is everything okay?” he was asking. “Who are you talking to?”

“There's - there's a crying Korean woman –“

“I'm not crying,” she interrupted him, wiping furiously at her eyes which were red from tears.

Kevin shot her a glare before continuing in a loud voice: “There's a Korean woman sitting next to me, and she's not crying the same way that _I'm not screaming_!”

His exclamation was punctuated by a loud crash and his car jolted forward, making the woman disappear in the process.

Kevin looked at the rearview mirror and realized that in his frenzy he had braked so abruptly that the car behind him had smashed into his trunk. An older man that seemed absolutely furious was already stepping out of his damaged car and approaching Kevin’s.

“Jer, please save me,” he whispered.

Naturally, in that moment, his phone battery died.

 

*

Renee felt utterly exhausted and hopeless. The previous night, she had somehow managed to find her way to her mother’s house without further incidents, but she hadn’t been able to fall asleep at all. 

On top of that, she had gotten her period this morning and her whole body was aching.

Now, she was lying on her mother’s sofa, resting her head on Stephanie’s lap and holding a hot water bottle close to her cramping stomach.

She had just been visited by the Mexican soccer player again, but for now she decided to push these weird reoccurrences out of her head. They were not the worst thing that was happening in her life right now. If she was honest with herself, it was almost comforting to know there were other people in this world that were connected to her.

“I don’t know what to do,” she sniffed and buried her nose in the warm and soft fabric of her mother’s sweater.

Stephanie stroked lightly over her hair and sighed. “I’m not sure there even is anything you can do at this point, darling.”

Her fingers stilled for a moment before she continued.

“I’m sure they will take you in for questioning, eventually. You are their most promising suspect at the moment, after all. But you would make yourself even more of a suspect if you were to flee or to evade the police any longer.”

“I’m afraid,” Renee admitted. She had long learned that she could open herself up to her mother and trust her even with her more vulnerable parts, and she would make sure to keep them safe.

“I know,” she answered now. “I am afraid, too. But I believe in you, and I believe they will not be able to pin this on you. Even if they send you to prison, I will fight for you, and I will pray for you, because I love you no matter what, okay?”

Renee felt tears run down her cheeks again when she nodded into her mother’s sweater. Slowly, she sat up and shuffled closer to her so she could throw her arms around her.

“I love you too,” she whispered. “Thank you for everything. You’ve saved me once, and I will save myself this time if it comes to it.”

Stephanie had tears in her eyes as well, but she was glowing in silent pride of how far her daughter had come in the past few years.

They held each other until the police arrived.

It was the last time Renee would see her mother for a very long time.

*

“You’re all spaced out again,” Katelyn remarked.

Aaron shook himself out of his thoughts – or had it been the thoughts of someone else? – and turned to look at his fiancée. “Sorry.”

They were sitting on a park bench together, looking out onto a small lake where swans were making their rounds and a path where a few joggers were on their mid-afternoon run.

They had tried to let the taxi driver from the hospital drop them off at home, but as they had rounded the corner of their street, there had been a cop car already waiting in front of their apartment complex.

In panic, they had asked the driver to continue and they had finally left the car at the entrance of the city’s biggest park in the hopes that the police weren’t looking for Aaron here yet.

“Are you okay? What were you thinking about?” Katelyn asked.

“I was thinking about our escape, earlier,” Aaron said, looking down at where his hands were entwined with Katelyn’s.

“You know, I can’t really remember what happened between the part where I was strapped to a hospital bed and the part where you put me into that car and got me out of there. It’s like I was somewhere outside of my body, or maybe so far inside that I couldn’t see anything that I did. And then I saw you, the first person who cared for me outside of family obligations, that made me feel I did fit in somewhere, that I belonged. I saw you, and for a moment I didn't know who you were.” 

Aaron didn’t know when he had become this emotional, but in his confusion, Katelyn was the only fixed point, the only constant he could be sure of, and he needed her to know that.

“Katelyn, what if Dr Metzger's right and there is something wrong with my brain?” he asked.

She lifted their hands together and pressed a kiss to his knuckles.

“Well, there are two possibilities. Possibility one: He's telling the truth. There is something wrong with your brain and it's causing hallucinations and you're gonna die.”

She kissed his hand again, the soft motion making his renewed panic disappear.

“I don’t believe in that one,” she assured him. “I believe in possibility two: That he's lying. That what he says is happening to you isn't what's happening. And if that's the case, there has to be a reason why he's lying, and we need to find out what that reason is.”

Her expression was so fierce and determined that he couldn’t help but stare at her in admiration.

“But first, we have to figure out where we can stay,” she broke the silence again.

Aaron leaned in to kiss her properly this time. “I already have an idea.”

 

*

The sun had barely begun to creep up the horizon when Andrew got off the night bus at the campus stop.

He knew that Bee would have her first client in three hours and figured that would be more than enough time to search her office.

When he reached the clinic, he took out his lock picks and worked first on the entrance door, then on Bee’s.

The familiar motion reminded him of what had occurred only a few hours earlier, when he had helped the sensate who looked just like him to get out of a hospital. Apparently, that was also something he was capable of doing now.

But that didn’t matter, Bee’s pills would help him switch all of this off, he thought with a new determination and carefully pushed open the door to her office.

As always, everything from the folders on the desk to the figurines on the shelf in the back was meticulously in order and perfectly arranged.

Well, why bother to keep that order in place, Andrew thought and started pulling out drawers and throwing some of the figurines off their shelf for good measure. Bee would know that he had been here when she’d discover that her blockers were gone, anyways, so he deliberately decided to unnerve her even more.

His search was not very successful, though, since after an hour of looking in every nook and cranny of the room, the bottle of medicine had still not turned up. Instead, the whole office resembled a medieval battlefield.

His phone buzzed with a reminder to take his own meds, and although he was upset with Bee, he knew that quitting his medication would fuck him up even more, so he washed them down quickly with some water from a bottle in his backpack.

Afterwards, he fixed himself a cup of hot chocolate from Bee’s supply and settled into her chair behind the desk. If he couldn’t find the blockers himself, he would have to confront Bee after all.

The lack of sleep was slowly catching up with him, but he forced himself to stay awake until he heard footsteps approaching the door.

A sharp intake of breath warned him that Bee had noticed the unlocked door, and seconds later she was inside, her face in shock as she took in the vandalized room. Then, her eyes settled on the figure behind her desk.

“Andrew,” Bee breathed, almost relieved. “What are you doing here?”

Andrew stared at her.

“You know I do not like breaking my promises,” he finally said. “I had every intention of never coming back here.”

“I know,” Bee said, lowering her briefcase to the floor and dragging a hand down her face, the shakiness of the movement the only visible cue that the state of her office was making her anxious.

“I made a mistake. I should have locked the door before taking the pills, and I’m sorry – I know you don’t want my apologies, because what happened is not reversible, but I had to tell you anyways. And I’m glad that you are here, regardless of your intentions.”

“I don’t care,” Andrew claimed, his voice made of ice. “Me being here doesn’t mean that I trust you. I merely need information, and you are the only one that can give it to me.”

“Then, what information do you want?” Bee asked softly.

Andrew didn’t waste his breath to deny that he actually wanted anything, since it seemed obvious that he, in fact, did. “I want your blockers, and I want to know what is happening to me,” he said, and then, a bit subdued, more than he had planned on telling her: “I want all of this to stop. I want to feel like my body is my own and nobody else’s.”

Bee’s eyes shone with emotion.

“Thank you for telling me,” she said, and then sat down on the couch, pulling one of the cushions into her lap that had been haphazardly thrown onto the floor during Andrew’s search.

“I’m going to make you a promise,” she said.

Andrew scoffed.

“No, hear me out, Andrew,” Bee continued before he could say anything. “I know that promises are important to you, and I will do everything in my power not to break this one. I am going to teach you how to deal with being a sensate, and I’m going to reach out to a friend to get double the amount of blockers next month.”

“Why only next month?” Andrew bit out. “I could just go ahead and take some of yours – since I didn’t find them here, I’m assuming you have them with you or you keep them at home.”

Bee seemed unfazed at the implication that Andrew was willing to break into her house as well.

“I’m going to explain to you why that can’t happen,” she said, taking the little pill bottle out of one of her pockets. “These are rationed. If I’m not constantly under the influence of the blockers, people will be able to find me, and now you as well because of our connection. This is the first thing you need to learn as a sensate: that we are being hunted, and we need to be vigilant always. So if I gave you some of my blockers, my contact wouldn’t be able to supply us with more soon enough. As far as I know, you are only connected to your own cluster and to me right now. I can protect you from others, but only if I’m not vulnerable myself and could reveal your identity involuntarily, which would be a possibility without the blockers.”

Andrew stayed quiet for a while, tapping his fingers on his armbands while he contemplated Bee’s arguments.

“Alright,” he finally said. “But I will hold you to this deal.”

“I know you will,” Bee smiled.

And so they began.

*

He really wanted this day to just fucking end, Kevin thought as he waited for his uber to arrive.

Once again, Jean and Jeremy had different schedules, and since Kevin’s car was in the repair shop for now, he was stuck outside of the gym at night with all of his sports gear and his thankfully recharged phone.

Because he was concentrating on reading an article about the benefits of kale, he didn’t notice the person appearing out of the shadows of the building until he was right in front of him.

“Hello, Kevin,” the other said. 

Kevin looked up and found himself face to face with Joaquin Hawking, defender for the rival soccer club Cruz Azul and coincidentally Jean’s ex-boyfriend. 

Actually, it was less face to face and more of Hawking looming over him – he hadn’t received his nickname, Gorilla, without a reason.

“Joaquin,” Kevin responded a bit wary. “What are you doing here?”

The larger man grinned. His breath reeked of alcohol. “You know why I'm here, don't you? You're fucking the love of my life.”

There was so much wrong with that sentence that Kevin couldn’t help grimacing. “The love of your life? Really?”

Joaquin’s grin grew even more menacing.

“Don’t pretend to know what our relationship was like,” he said. “We had something special, Jean and I.”

Kevin glanced at his phone nervously, hoping that his uber would arrive soon to save him from whatever plan Joaquin had with him.

“Hey, don’t ignore me,” the other’s voice was suddenly much louder and even closer. “I know you think you’re better than everyone else because they all treat you like a superstar. Maybe that’s why you thought you could steal my boyfriend and get away with it. But let me tell you something,” he leaned in so that his mouth was nearly touching Kevin’s ear, and then there was a hand clenching his throat and making him gag.

“I’m going to get him back, and I’m going to destroy you. You know what I’m capable of,” Joaquin said lowly.

Then, he released his throat and was gone as quickly as he had come, leaving Kevin to gasp for air.

Yes, he knew far too well what Joaquin was capable of, he thought as his taxi finally pulled to a stop in front of him.

They were all fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> (Joaquin is also the name of a character in Sense8, which I bizarrely combined with that one exy player from tfc)
> 
> By the way, [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8W3WzpCU0Y) is what I imagined Kevin’s perfume ad to look like.
> 
> Please let me know what you think of this chapter in the comments below or find me on [tumblr](www.franzithebookworm.tumblr.com).
> 
> And to say it with the words of Sense8: Merry Christmas and a happy f*cking New Year!


	6. Demons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Matt and Dan meet once more and Nicky makes an appearance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I apologize for the long wait - I’ve been extremely busy with uni and writing a totally different fic for the Aftg Reverse Bang, which will be happening soon!
> 
> This chapter is very Dan-focused, because we haven’t seen much of her in the previous chapters. Also, there will be no sex scene like in the original episode, it just didn’t fit in with the characters and where they are at right now - sorry!
> 
> [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXgXFwnrGqE&index=19&list=PLifz6OAhZSHZ31Vhox50WRm_ct5YIIBqZ) is the song that plays in the beginning of this episode, and I love the atmosphere it brings to the scene so I would recommend listening to it while reading about Matt and Dan!  
> Enjoy!

Warnings: Violence/ Strangulation (in Dan’s second scene, after Renee’s. If you want to know more/ have any further concerns, please send me an ask on tumblr)

 

Soft music sounded in Dan’s ears. She was sitting in a small café near Gabi’s apartment, the evening crowd bustling around her while she remained untouched, her headphones shielding her from the world. Her plan was to select a piece of music for this semester’s dance recital, but her thoughts kept straying elsewhere.

On the other side of the world, Matt was entering the local bar that he and his colleagues frequented. Laila waved at him from the billiard table where she was engaged in a fierce game against her girlfriend, while he made his way to the counter.

And there she was: the girl who he had seen over and over again in his visions and dreams – she was dressed differently than the last few times they had met, but she also looked much calmer.

As he approached her, she looked up and sent him a smile, taking off her headphones.

“I was just – “

“- thinking about you,” he finished what she had started.

He smiled back – how could he not, when hers was lighting up her whole face and everything around her.

The bartender sent him a questioning look, and Matt distracted him by ordering a beer.

“Cheers,” Dan said when he’d received the bottle and lifted her own cup of tea in greeting.

“Cheers,” he replied, which earned him another weird glance from the bartender.

“So, you’re a cop, right?”

“Yeah, and you’re – “

He stopped, unsure of the answer. “Well, I don’t know if your costume the other night was any indication of what you do like my police uniform was for you, so I actually have no idea.”

Dan laughed at that.

“I’m a dancer,” she told him.

“Yes!” He pumped his fist, and felt like he was making a fool out of himself in the next moment. “I was right about the costume then!”

She chuckled at his antics, but sobered up quickly.

“Do you think we’re going crazy?” she said quietly. “I don’t even know if you are real.”

“I have an idea,” Matt told her. “Give me your phone.”

Dan unplugged her headphones and unlocked her phone before handing it over. He punched in his number and showed it to her.

“All right, if I’m not real, this number shouldn’t work either, right? Let’s see what happens if you try calling me, then.”

He watched as she pressed the call button and held her phone to her ear.

Seconds later, his own device started buzzing in his pocket. He took it out and gestured for Dan to follow him as he went over to the billiard table.

“Hey, Laila!”

“What’s up?” his friend answered, leaning her cue stick against the table.

“Can you pick that up for me? I think either my phone is acting up or there’s something wrong with my hearing,” he made up a rather flimsy excuse.

Laila frowned at him, but nevertheless accepted the call for him.

“Hello?”

“Uh, hi,” Dan answered right next to her. “Is Matt there?”

“Yeah, hang on,” Laila said and put a hand over the speaker. “It’s some girl with a weird accent,” she told him.

“Weird accent?” he asked perplexed. He hadn’t noticed that at all.

He thanked her and walked back to his seat, Dan right by his side.

“Safe to say we're not going crazy,” he told her through the phone, hearing it simultaneously through hers.

“Wow, this is so cool,” she replied as she settled back into her seat as well.  
They both hung up, as phone calls were unnecessary when they could communicate like this.

“Wait, so which language are you speaking right now?” Matt asked curiously.

“Portuguese, of course,” Dan laughed. “I guess you can understand me no matter what, but I switched to English for your friend.”

“Have you had any other visitors?” Matt asked. “Wymack said that there were eight of us.”

“Wymack?”

“He was with the woman who shot herself,” he explained.

“Kayleigh,” Dan nodded.

“How did you know that?” Matt asked surprised.

“I'm not sure.”

They sat in silence for a while, quietly enjoying each other’s company. Dan handed him one of the earphones after a while, and they shared the music, the harmonies and the beat, breathing in the air on two different continents. There were worlds in Dan’s eyes, Matt thought, the steps she talked to him about, that she was imagining in her head, all the endless possibilities to craft something more, something living out of this song that drifted through them like a summer’s breeze. He couldn’t help but be in awe of her, and she laughed at the look on his face as the song finally came to an end. 

Matt had to laugh too, but sobered up when he remembered what he had wanted to ask her since she’d reappeared.

“That time you came to that warehouse, you seemed really scared,” he started. “Like something happened ...”

He regretted the words as soon as they’d escaped his mouth as he saw her expression fall.

“I’m so sorry,” he quickly added. “It's none of my business, I get it.”

“It’s okay, I just don’t really want to talk about it right now ...”

Dan sighed, playing with the cord of her earphones.

“I should probably go home,” she added and sent him an apologetic smile. “But it was great meeting you again.”

“See you soon, all right?” he asked, relieved that she didn’t seem seriously upset by his questions before.

“All right.”

With that, she stood up and was gone in the blink of an eye.

The world spun on without her by his side.

*

Renee tried hard to remain calm as she looked around the courtroom.

The days after her arrest had been extremely taxing, the uncertainty of her fate keeping her awake at night in her cell; and incredibly lonely, no Allison nor any other strangers showing up.

The lawyers and police had made quick work of it, though, and so her case was being brought before the court today.

 

Her mother hadn’t been able to take the day off, so she was all on her own while the attorneys rolled up her past like an exotic object to inspect as they pleased.

Something caught her eye, and she noticed a blond white boy in a corner in the back, standing out due to his casual clothing and seemingly bored posture among the sea of suits and tense figures.

When he noticed her staring, though, he held her gaze intently, as if he was assessing her.

Renee was sure that she had seen him before, but she couldn’t quite say where.

Finally, the guy sent her a nod that seemed to be approving.

She frowned, wondering what about her was possibly worthy of approval right now, but then, all at once, he was gone as if he’d never been there in the first place.

Renee shook herself out of it and concentrated on the trial once more.

She knew with a horrible, gut-sinking certainty that she had no choice but to confess to the crime she hadn’t committed. 

Joongki’s messenger had made it very clear what would happen otherwise, and Renee couldn’t bear the thought of being responsible for him hurting the young people she had sworn to protect or her mother in any way.

She shuddered as she thought of how he had threatened her mother’s safety, and she made a decision - or rather, the decision was made for her.

After everything was done, an officer escorted her back to the police station and her lonely cell.

“Tomorrow, you'll be transferred to Cheongju Women’s Prison,” he told her, and she just stared at him until he retreated.

She would be far away from home there, far away from everything she’d built for herself - but also, far away from Joongki.

*

Dan hummed under her breath as she walked home - or at least, Gabriella’s flat that she had begun to consider her second home since she’d moved in a week ago.

The unexpected encounter with Matt - when had their meetings ever not been unexpected, though? - had lifted her spirits, and she had a little bit of a skip in her steps as she made her way up the narrow staircase to Gabriella’s apartment.

It wasn’t just her friend waiting inside, though.

It was her friend, with a knife to her throat and terrified eyes.

Her friend, crying out, “I’m sorry, Dani, I couldn’t warn you.”

Her friend, being thrown down the staircase while Dan stood there frozen, helpless against the arms that pulled her inside.

“Where is it?” a deep voice asked and yanked her around. The man it belonged to was uncannily similar to the men Dan had seen die just a few days back. “Where are my fucking drugs?”

He grabbed her hard and sent her flying into a table.

She panted, pain shooting through her head as she struggled to get upright again. She needed to get to her phone, where was her phone, she had to call the police, was Gabi going to be okay?

Before she could finish her thoughts, the man slapped her across the face. She could taste blood in her mouth. 

“Fucking answer me already,” he shouted, and she flinched back. 

“I don’t know anything about your drugs,” she coughed out. 

“Bullshit.” Another slap. “I know you were there that night. You saw the deal, and ran away with the stuff to sell it somewhere else -”

“No, no, I didn’t know, I didn’t -” she whimpered.

“Tell me where you put them or you die right now.”

The man was so close to her face that all she could see was his teeth, big and yellow, like a tiger ready to pounce.

“Your choice,” he said after a moment of silence.

Then, he took out a plastic bag and pushed it over her head, until her nose and mouth were pressing against the material.

He wrapped it tight around her neck and pulled. 

She couldn’t breathe. _She could not breathe_. There was no air, no sound, just her hyperventilating and gasping in her ears.

At the billiard table, far away in Cape Town, Matt grabbed helplessly at his throat and crashed to the floor.

Dan’s mind started to become fuzzy around the edges, everything muddy and far away while she struggled against her constraints.

Suddenly, she was free.

“I love how violence can change something as simple and ubiquitous as a plastic bag here into one of the most terrifying objects in the world,” she heard the man say dimly. “Well, let's see if this experience has changed your answer.”

The tiger’s teeth flashed before her eyes again. “Danielle, where are my drugs?” 

She gasped and spit and panted, her brain feeling as if it was underwater. “I don’t know,” she managed to say.

“Oh, if only I could believe you,” he replied, grinning.

The plastic went back over her face.

She would not survive this a second time. She was so sure of that fact that she stopped struggling for a second, the panic freezing her completely. She didn’t want to die, this couldn’t be happening -

\- and then Matt was there again, fighting for air along with her, taking control of her and driving her knee between the other man’s legs, making him crumple in pain. Matt used the opportunity to twist her arms out of the man’s grasp, and slammed into the other’s head with her own, knocking him over. 

Finally, Dan was able to pull off the bag and choked as she tried to breathe in again. 

The man that had threatened her was trying to get up from the floor, eyes flashing with anger at her resistance. Before he could do anything, she took a lamp from the table and smashed it over his head. He broke down once more, blood trickling from his temple into the carpet of the living room floor.

Meanwhile, Matt found his way back into his own body. His desperate gasps echoed loudly in the room that had fallen silent, dozens of his colleagues watching him worriedly. 

Laila was lying right next to him, her nose swollen and bleeding, one eye starting to blacken. He must have hit her by accident in his panic.

“What the fuck was that, Boyd?” she asked him, furious.

He just shook his head.

On the other side of the world, Dan grabbed her bag and fled, again.

 

*

In Columbia, Aaron and Katelyn were doing much the same. Still unable to return to their apartment, afraid that the police would take Aaron with them and get him back to Easthaven if they got their hands on him, they turned to the only person Aaron had been able to think of in his fear.

“Hello, Nicky,” Katelyn said as Aaron’s cousin opened the door.

“I’m so glad you guys called me,” Nicky answered and proceeded to crush them both in one big hug. “I missed you so much! You’re always so busy, and we never see each other anymore - but anyways, what happened? You need to tell me everything -”

“Maybe let them come inside first,” his fiancé Erik interrupted him, laughing at Nicky’s enthusiasm. 

“Oh no, you’re right, come on in, guys,” he rattled on, pulling them inside the house that Aaron had spent the last few years of his childhood in. “Are you hungry? We made a huge pot of chili, don’t worry!”

During dinner, Aaron slowly told Nicky and Erik what had happened to him over the last few days. They were both appalled by what Proust had forced him to go through, and incredibly worried when he described the hallucinations and everything else that he had experienced.

“Of course you can stay with us however long you need to,” Nicky said after he was done and squeezed his hand. “I’ll get your old bedroom ready for you.”

Later, the two of them were lying on Aaron’s old bed, staring up to the glowing stars that Nicky had put there when Aaron was sixteen in an attempt to make this house feel more like a home to him. Teenage Aaron had found it extremely embarrassing and childish, but he hadn’t taken them down either, so maybe, just maybe, adult Aaron mused, Nicky had been successful after all.

“Ahh, I remember when you first brought me here,” Katelyn said, snuggling closer to him, her head on his chest. “Christmas break, junior year.”

Right. Their freshman year, they’d just started dating before christmas - the break had been cruel since they had spent it apart from each other. Sophomore, she had taken him to meet her family, and then, finally, he had shown her the Columbia house one year later.

“You were so nervous,” Katelyn chuckled, and he smiled, playing with her hair.

“And you weren’t the year before?”

“I didn’t say that,” she laughed.

Aaron sighed, suddenly wishing all he had to worry about was Katelyn seeing his teenage bedroom for the first time like back then.

“This isn't gonna stop,” he said quietly. “They're never gonna leave us alone, are they?”

Katelyn turned her head so she could look at him.

“Unless we make them,” she replied.

“What do you have in mind?” he asked.

“Fuck these guys, Aaron. First thing tomorrow, we’re going to figure out a plan.”

But for now, they just cuddled a bit longer, basking in memories, and finally fell asleep, the exhaustion of the previous days catching up to them.

*

Renee didn’t know what time it was. Somewhere along the line of struggling to fall asleep, she had lost track of how many hours it had been in that dark prison cell.

And then, suddenly, there was someone next to her. 

Someone new - not Allison, not the dramatic soccer player, but a woman with dark skin and short hair. Wherever she was, it had to be cold, since she was shivering in her dress.

“Hello,” Renee whispered when the woman didn’t seem to notice her. 

The other looked up, surprised, and took a shaky breath.

“God, I'm sorry,” she said with a raspy voice.

“You don't have to apologize,” Renee answered softly. It became apparent that the woman hadn’t been shivering from the cold, but rather from emotion. Renee could feel the fear, shock and hopelessness that the other was going through.

“I thought I was all on my own,” she whispered.

“Me, too,” Renee said and reached out to her. “But we’re not, see?”

The woman managed a shaky smile. “I’m Dan,” she offered.

“I’m Renee.”

“Why are you here? If you don't mind me asking,” Dan gestured towards the walls of the cell and Renee’s uniform.

Renee told her her story, and in return, Dan explained what had happened to her.

“So, we are both in trouble because of someone else's crime,” Renee concluded.

Dan nodded. “I don’t know what to do. Gabi was admitted to the hospital because of me. I don’t have anywhere else to stay, and I don’t want to be the reason that people around me get hurt.”

“I understand that very well,” Renee answered. It was what had brought her to her earlier decision as well, after all.

“I think I need to go home,” Dan said. “I grew up in Manaus, in the heart of the Amazon. I haven’t been there in years, but nobody would know to look for me there. And I’ve suddenly become so homesick …”

“Do you have family there?”

“Not really … my parents weren’t good people,” she replied, swallowing thickly. “But my aunt’s still there. She raised me.”

“You should go,” Renee told her. “You’ll be safer there than where you are right now.”

“Thanks,” she said. “Are you afraid to go to prison tomorrow?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Don't be,” Dan told her and pulled her into a hug. “Because you're safer there than where you were, too. And you’re never going to be alone again.”

 

*

That night, they all had the same dream.

Kayleigh was waiting for them, in that abandoned warehouse.

“My children,” she said, and there they were, all eight of them in one place. “You’re all so beautiful and strong.”

Some of them felt blessed to hear this from her, others uncomfortable, not believing in their full capabilities yet. They would learn with time, she was sure.

 

“But you have to remember to be careful,” she told them. “They are afraid of you, and they will hurt you if they find out.”

“Find out?” 

“What you are.”

“What am I?” each of them asked.

“The future,” she answered.

They woke up.

The future was here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> Let me know what you think in the comments or find me on [tumblr](https://franzithebookworm.tumblr.com)!


End file.
